"You might fire the gun to let us know you're back," cried the baronet.
"Right-o!"
Lawless turned to bend over the engine. Then he looked round quickly and grinned.
"Good luck!" he cried, "and good hunting!" and waved a friendly hand. With that he pushed over the lever and with a mighty flurry of propeller and vast bustle among the sea-birds on the foreshore, the Naomi's launch throbbed her way out into the bay towards where, spanning as it seemed the harbour's narrowest part, a creamy band of white spume marked the surf-line. Silently we watched the pretty craft, her paint and brass-work flashing in the morning sun, gliding through the green water. Then Lawless raised an arm in a parting greeting, and the white launch melted into the spume and spray of the open sea.
We stood on a long sloping beach of gleaming white sand shut in on all sides save the sea by lofty grey rocks. Their jagged points out-topped the bright-green fronds of the waving palm-trees which grew almost down to the water's edge. Their column-like appearance, coupled with the singular silence of the island, gave me a sort of solemn feeling, like being in a cathedral.
Some three hundred yards from where the foam-crested rollers beat their thunderous measure on the beach, the ground rose abruptly. The sand ended and became emerged in a tangle of coarse grass. Alternating with a wild and luxuriant undergrowth of a great variety of tree ferns and other plants, it formed a kind of tasselling to a great curtain of greenery which rose, as it seemed, sheer from the sea.
The verdure was so dense that it completely hid the bases of the pointed cliffs which, clustered together like a bundle of faggots, formed the high central part of the island. From some hidden source a clear cold stream of water came plunging down from the cliff, rushing and gurgling until it lost itself in the sea.
It was the first time I had ever set foot on an uninhabited shore. It was a curious sensation. The sea-birds wheeled aloft with their harsh melancholy cries; among the trees above the beach there was sometimes the flash of a brilliantly-plumaged bird and here and there some animal rustled in the undergrowth. But otherwise a deep silence brooded over the island. There was an atmosphere of expectancy about the place which rather intrigued me.
I lost no time in setting about choosing a site for our camp. The appearance of the foreshore, exposed to the full force of the wind in unfavourable weather, did not impress me favourably, nor, owing to the danger from lightning in the thunderstorms that spring up so suddenly in these climes, did the obvious solution of erecting our huts under the shelter of the trees higher up on the shore commend itself. Moreover, I knew very little about conditions on Cock Island and, were there any wild animals about, it would be as well, I reflected, to pitch our camp in some spot not easily accessible to attack.
After exploring round a bit I came, behind a mantle of hanging creeper, upon the mouth of a cave. Set in the lofty grey rocks dominating the beach, it was well clear of high-tide level and clean and dry into the bargain. The roof sloped somewhat, but there was ample clearance for Garth's six feet when he stood erect and the cave ran back for some twenty feet into the rock.