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An hour after sunrise next morning Davis, on the look-out, saw a golden point in the sky away to the south of west. It was the cloud turban of Motul. A moment later Harman saw it too.

“Lord! it’s a high island,” cried he. “I thought there was nuthin’ but low islands in these parts. Where have we been driftin’ to?”

“I don’t know,” replied Davis. “Mind your steering, it’s land, that’s all I want.”

“Oh, I ain’t grumblin’,” said Harman. He got her a point closer to the wind and steered, keeping the far-off speck on the port bow. The breeze freshened and the stays of the mast, fastened to the outrigger grating, twanged while the spray came inboard now and then in dashes from the humps of the swell, yet not a white cap was to be seen in all the vast expanse of water, the great sea running with a heave in the line of Humboldt’s current from south to north, but without a foam gout to break the ruffled blue.

At noon Motul had lost its turban of cloud, but now it stood, a great lumping island moulded out of mountains, scarred with gulleys down which burst forests and rainbow falls, for Motul was green with the recent rains and its perfume met them ten miles across the sea.