Chapter 24
WE ANCHOR OFF THE ISLAND. The word fetched me out of my bunk like a shot from a gun. I ran past him, scrambled up the fo'c's'le ladder, and gained the deck in time to see Miss Belcher emerge from the after-companion upon the dawn, her hair in a "bun," her bare feet thrust into loose felt slippers, her form wrapped in a Newmarket overcoat closely buttoned over her robe de nuit. "The Island, ma'am!" announced Captain Branscome from the helm; and, turning there by the fo'c's'le hatch and following the gesture of his hand, I descried a purplish smear on the southern horizon. To me it looked but a low-lying cloud or a fogbank. "I'll take your word for it," answered Miss Belcher, calmly. "You have timed it well, Captain Branscome." "Under Providence, ma'am," the Captain corrected her, and ca
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