Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a silent perusal of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight.  Little by little, in that white waste of water, I began to make out a quarter where the whiteness appeared more condensed:  the sky above was whitish likewise, and misty like a squall; and little by little there thrilled upon my ears a note deeper and more terrible than the yelling of the gale—­the long, thundering roll of breakers.  Nares wiped his night glass on his sleeve and passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his hand.  An endless wilderness of raging billows came and went and danced in the circle of the glass; now and then a pale corner of sky, or the strong line of the horizon rugged with the heads of waves; and then of a sudden—­come and gone ere I could fix it, with a swallow’s swiftness—­one glimpse of what we had come so far and paid so dear to see:  the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard.  Again and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition.  There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef.  Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air; and the sound of their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade.

In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we skirted that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and presently the sea began insensibly to moderate and the ship to go more sweetly.  We had gained the lee of the island as (for form’s sake) I may call that ring of foam and haze and thunder; and shaking out a reef, wore ship and headed for the passage.

CHAPTER XIII.  THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.

All hands were filled with joy.  It was betrayed in their alacrity and easy faces:  Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares studying the sketch chart of the island with an eye at peace, and the hands clustered forward, eagerly talking and pointing:  so manifest was our escape, so wonderful the attraction of a single foot of earth after so many suns had set and risen on an empty sea.  To add to the relief, besides, by one of those malicious coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an underbred and grinning schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the wind began to abate.