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And the tide ebbing past this islet to the sea, flowing fast outward into the deep, carried them in its silent depths out into the new, the mysterious places of the spirit. The sun sank, covering the islands and the sea with a rare amethystine glow deepening to a band of purple, like some old dyed cloth, then fading to pale green at the rim of the earth.
As we then were, I saw that the boat would go through the narrower one the swifter evidently; and at the same moment a pile of wood and dead rubbish on the sandspit ceased to obstruct the view, and to my horror I saw that the little long islet, whose sands were only just above the level of the water, was occupied by a group of seven or eight alligators, the nearest being a monster, the rest varying to the smallest, which was not above three feet long.
"Long ere this castle was builded ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared its head above the blue water, I was destined to be your faithful slave, and you to be my ungrateful mistress.
And once more we'll cruise together; but you won't judge your commander too harshly, will you, Guy?" We took the ebb down the river. Our papers read for a West India trading voyage, but we lingered not among the West Indies. Four weeks later we raised the Cape Verdes, and an islet rose like a castle from out of the mists. Abreast of a pebbled beach we came to anchor and waited.
It is now deserted. The people, as well as myself, knew that if my husband had returned that he would have sailed his ship right down here to this end of the lagoon where he had anchored previously, instead of lying under the south-east islet. Most of them, therefore, at once took to the bush to hide themselves, and begged me to come with them.
A hundred yards or so she had got from the edge of the islet, but she was still widening the distance between us, and would soon be much farther off. It was plain, then, that if I intended to take this course, no time was to be lost not a moment. What else could I do?
Traitors, however, from Zealand itself now came forward to teach the Spanish Commander how to strike at the heart of their own country. These refugees explained to Requesens that a narrow flat extended under the sea from Philipsland, a small and uninhabited islet situate close to Tholen, as far as the shore of Duiveland.
The Dobryna approached the land as nearly as was prudent, the boat was lowered, and in a few minutes the count and Servadac had landed upon the islet, which was a mere plot of meadow land, not much more than two acres in extent, dotted here and there with a few myrtle-bushes and lentisks, interspersed with some ancient olives.
"A mastery of arms is always useful, whether a man be a peace-loving citizen, or one who would carve his way to fame by means of his weapons. We merchants of the Mediterranean might give up our trade, if we were not prepared to defend our ships against the corsairs of Barbary, and the pirates who haunt every inlet and islet of the Levant now, as they have ever done since the days of Rome.
At last, however, after one or two nasty slips, and a false step or so on the way that ended in her grazing the tender skin on those white little fingers, Cleer reached the base of the crag, and stood face to face with the final problem of crossing the chasm that divided the islet from the opposite mainland.
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