Good old Yip! Martin felt shame of his recent low estimate of the Chinaman. Yip was fooling the Japs—perhaps coached by the safely hidden hunchback!
Martin's hopes leaped again. Why, thought he, with Little Billy's fertile mind on the job, and Yip free and friendly, their chance of success in an outbreak was greatly increased. Likely enough Little Billy was in communication with the men in the hold. A well-timed surprise might overcome the terrible handicap of the guns. If he only knew what that paper in his pocket contained! Well, perhaps he would know soon, if things went right.
Ichi's right side was toward him. Martin carefully noted the revolver-butt peeping from the coat-pocket. That revolver occupied an important place in the plan that was forming in Martin's mind. He carefully scanned the other occupants of the boat. So far as he could see their only weapons were sheath-knives.
The tide was ebbing swiftly and the Cohasset tugged at her cable, bow on to the beach. The breach between the ship and the whale-boat widened; the panoramic view of the mountain and the little bay interrupted Martin's thoughts. He twisted about in his seat, and sent his gaze about the cove in an encircling sweep, thus gaining his first clear idea of the actual geography of the place.
Nature had formed the bay, he saw, by pinching a small chunk out of the huge cone of the volcano. The bay was a watery wedge cutting into the mountain to a depth of about twelve hundred yards, a half-mile wide at the entrance, and narrowing down to a bare half hundred yards of narrow beach at the point of the wedge.
The Cohasset was anchored about five hundred yards from the beach, and at a like distance on either side of her the flanking cliffs rose sheer from the water. The waters of the bay were quiet, but, at the mouth, Martin saw the seas beating fiercely upon the girdling reef, smashing thunderously upon jutting, jagged rocks, and sending the white spray cascading into the sunshine. But he searched in vain for signs of a wreck. He interrupted Ichi's reverie with a question.
"Where did the Dawn strike?"
To his surprise, the Japanese answered promptly.
"On the opposite side of the island—on the reef. Ah, that was a happening of much terribleness, Mr. Blake. It was night and fog—the same utterly darkness that was of such disaster to you honorable gentlemen last night. Honorable Carew did not suspect the nearness of land. The rock pierced our bottom and we sank with immediateness. Ah—it was of much sadness! We saved not food or clothes and but half our number. We rowed away.
"After while, there came to us a morning of much niceness, like the present one, and we found that the schooner had been altogether taken, as honorable Carew remarked by one god of the sea, named David Jones. So we rowed around the volcano and came in this bay, and I knew the place from the memory I had of hearing the reading, so long ago, in Honolulu.