It was not the Island of St. Paul’s. That I knew. It was, therefore, Amsterdam Island; and, filled as I was with anxiety and distracted by many contending passions, a momentary emotion of pride swelled my heart when I beheld that island, scarcely five miles distant, within three points under the bows of the little brig.
Yan Bol stood beside me with folded arms. The ear-flaps of his hair cap helmeted his face; his skin was green with the faint light ahead; he looked like a mariner of Tromp’s day in casque-like cap.
“So dot vhas der island? Dot vhas New Amsterdam, hey? Potsblitz! Vhas not der Doytch everywhere in her day? But dot day vhas gone. Und dot vhas der island, hey? Vell, she vhas in good time, und I likes der look of der vetter. Vhere vhas der landing-place, I fonders?”
I told him I couldn’t say; I was without a chart of the island. Its configuration, to our approach, was that of a lofty mass of coal-black rock southeast, with a down-like shelving of the stuff into the interior, and a facing seaward of rugged, horribly precipitous cliff. I should say it scarcely measured five miles north and south. The ocean looked lonely with it, as a babe makes lonelier the figure of the lonely woman who carries it; the melancholy picture of the deep at that moment—of that picture of faint green dawn blackening out the forlorn pile of island and the indigo sweep of the sea-line on either hand of it, and all astern of us the thickness of the smoky shadows of the departing night—is indescribable.
The sun rose right behind the island. It shot out a hundred beams of splendor before lifting its flaming upper limb; it was then a fine morning; the water of this Indian Ocean brimmed in a dark and beautifully pure blue to the base of the iron-like steeps; the flash and dazzle of rollers were visible at points, the sky was hard and high with a delicate shading and interlacery of gray cloud, and the wind was small and about northwest.
I looked south for the Island of St. Paul; it was invisible from the altitude of our deck, though I dare say on a fine, clear day it may be seen from the top of Amsterdam Island.
“Vere vhas the landing-places, I fonders,” said Bol.
I fetched the glass and carefully covered as much of the island as our bearings commanded. While I kneeled I felt a hand upon my shoulder.
“Qué tiempo hace?” inquired the lady Aurora in a cool, collected voice, looking down into my face.
I answered in Spanish that the weather was fine and promised to keep so.