Romance Island

By afternoon the island of Yaque was an accomplished fact of distinguishable parts. There it lay, a thing of rock and green, like the islands of its sister latitudes before which the passing ships of all the world are wont to cast anchor. But having once cast anchor before Yaque the ships of all the world would have had great difficulty in landing anybody.

Sheer and almost smoothly hewn from the utmost coast of the island rose to a height of several hundred feet one scarcely deviating wall of rock; and this apparently impregnable wall extended in either direction as far as the sight could reach. Above the natural rampart the land sloped upward still in steep declivities, but cut by tortuous gorges, and afar inland rose the mountain upon whose summit the light had been descried. There the glass revealed white towers and columns rising from a mass of brilliant tropical green, and now smitten by the late sun; but save these towers and columns not a sign of life or habitation was discernible. No smoke arose, no wharf or dock broke the serene outline of the black wall lapped by the warm sea; and there was no sound save that of strong torrents afar off. Lonely, inscrutable, the great mass stood, slightly shelved here and there to harbour rank and blossomy growths of green and presenting a rugged beauty of outline, but apparently as uninhabitable as the land of the North Silences.

Consternation and amazement sat upon the faces of the owner of The Aloha and his guests as they realized the character of the remarkable island. St. George and Amory had counted upon an adventure calling for all diplomacy, but neither had expected the delight of hazard that this strange, fairy-like place seemed about to present. Each felt his blood stirring and singing in his veins at the joy of the possibilities that lay folded before them.

"We shall be obliged to land upon the east coast then, Jarvo?" observed St. George; "but how long will it take us to sail round the island?"

"Very long," Jarvo responded, "but no, adôn, we land on this coast."

"How is that possible?" St. George asked.

"Well, hi--you," said Little Cawthorne, "I'm a goat, but I'm no mountain goat. See the little Swiss kid skipping from peak to peak and from crag to crag--"

"Do we scale the wall?" inquired St. George, "or is there a passage in the rock?"

Bennietod hugged himself in uncontrollable ecstasy.

"Hully Gee, a submarine passage, in under de sea, like Jules Werne," he said in a delight that was almost awe.

"There is a way over the rock," said Jarvo, "partly hewn, partly natural, and this is known to the islanders alone. That way we must take. It is marked by a White Blade blazoned on the rock over the entrance of the submarines. The way is cunningly concealed--hardly will the glass reveal it, adôn."