Martin Conisby

All next day I followed the coast, keeping the sea upon my left, looking for some such landlocked harbourage with its cliff shaped like a lion's head as Adam had described, yet though I was at great pains (and no small risk to my neck) to peer down into every bay I came upon, nowhere did I discover any such bay or cliff as bore out his description; thus night found me eager to push on, yet something despondent and very weary. So I lighted my fire and ate my supper, harassed by a growing dread lest I was come too far to the east, after all.

And presently up came the moon in glory; indeed, never do I remember seeing it so vivid bright, its radiance flashing back from the waters far below and showing tree and bush and precipitous cliff, very sharp and clear. Upon my left, as I sat, the jagged coast line curved away out to sea, forming thus the lofty headland I had traversed scarce an hour since, that rose sheer from the moon-dappled waters, a huge, shapeless bluff. Now after some while I arose, and seeing the moon so glorious, shouldered my gun, minded to seek a little further before I slept. I had gone thus but a few yards, my gaze now on the difficult path before me, now upon the sea, when, chancing to look towards the bluff I have mentioned, I stopped to stare amazed, for in this little distance, this formless headland, seen from this angle, had suddenly taken a new shape and there before me, plain and manifest, was the rough semblance of a lion's head; and I knew that betwixt it and the high cliff whereon I stood must be Adam's excellent secure haven. This sudden discovery filled me with such an ecstacy that I fell a-trembling, howbeit I began to quest here and there for some place where I might get me down whence I might behold this bay and see if Adam's ship lay therein. And in a little, finding such a place, I began to descend and found it so easy and secure it seemed like some natural stair, and I did not doubt that Adam and his fellows had belike used it as such ere now.

At last I came where I could look down into a narrow bay shut in by these high, bush-girt cliffs and floored with gleaming, silver sand, whose waters, calm and untroubled, mirrored the serene moon, and close under the dense shadows of these cliffs I made out the loom of a great ship. Hereupon I looked no more, but gave all my attention to hands and feet, and so, slipping and stumbling in my eagerness, got me down at last and began running across these silvery sands. But as I approached the ship where she lay now plain in my view, I saw her topmasts were gone, and beholding the ruin of her gear and rigging, I grew cold with sudden dread and came running.