On a gray afternoon, with a fog hovering¹ over the leaden water, they sighted the island where the wreck² lay. What wind there was blew astern, but it had scarcely strength enough to wrinkle the long heave that followed the sloop³; the tide, Jimmy computed⁴, was at half flood. This was borne out by the way a blur⁵ on their port hand grew into a tongue of reef on which the sea broke in snowy turmoil⁶, and by the quickness with which the long, gray ridge⁷ behind it emerged from the fog. Sweeping⁸ it with the glasses, Jimmy could distinguish a few dark patches that looked like scrub-pines or willows⁹. Then, as she opened up the coastline, he noticed the strip of sloppy¹⁰ beach sprinkled with weedy boulders¹¹, and the bare slopes of sand and stones beyond. The spot was unlike the islands at which they had called on their way up; for they were thickly covered with ragged¹² firs and an undergrowth of brush and wild-fruit vines; this had a desolate¹³, forbidding look, as if only the hardiest¹⁴ vegetation could withstand the chill and

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