three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow
passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I volunteered for one of
the boats, where I had, of course, no business. The heat was sweltering,
and the men grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was in command
of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew in order, he grumbled as
loud as the worst.

"Well," he said with an oath, "it's not forever."

I thought this was a very bad sign, for up to that day the men had gone
briskly and willingly about their business; but the very sight of the
island had relaxed the cords of discipline.

All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship.
He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the
chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John never
hesitated once.

"There's a strong scour with the ebb," he said, "and this here passage
has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade."

We brought up just where the anchor was in the chart, about a third of
a mile from each shore, the mainland on one side and Skeleton Island on
the other. The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor sent up
clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods, but in less than a
minute they were down again and all was once more silent.

The place was entirely land-locked, buried in woods, the trees coming
right down to high-water mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hilltops
standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one