The suddenness of this change of weather so fixed my eyes on heaven
that it was some seconds before they alighted on the bay, mapped
out below my feet, and robbed a moment later of the sun. The knoll
which I had just surmounted overflanked a little amphitheatre of
lower hillocks sloping towards the sea, and beyond that the yellow
arc of beach and the whole extent of Sandag Bay. It was a scene on
which I had often looked down, but where I had never before beheld
a human figure. I had but just turned my back upon it and left it
empty, and my wonder may be fancied when I saw a boat and several
men in that deserted spot. The boat was lying by the rocks. A
pair of fellows, bareheaded, with their sleeves rolled up, and one
with a boathook, kept her with difficulty to her moorings for the
current was growing brisker every moment. A little way off upon
the ledge two men in black clothes, whom I judged to be superior in
rank, laid their heads together over some task which at first I did
not understand, but a second after I had made it out - they were
taking bearings with the compass; and just then I saw one of them
unroll a sheet of paper and lay his finger down, as though
identifying features in a map. Meanwhile a third was walking to
and fro, polling among the rocks and peering over the edge into the
water. While I was still watching them with the stupefaction of
surprise, my mind hardly yet able to work on what my eyes reported,
this third person suddenly stooped and summoned his companions with
a cry so loud that it reached my ears upon the hill. The others
ran to him, even dropping the compass in their hurry, and I could
see the bone and the shoe-buckle going from hand to hand, causing
the most unusual gesticulations of surprise and interest. Just
then I could hear the seamen crying from the boat, and saw them
point westward to that cloud continent which was ever the more