The Pirate Island by Harry Collingwood

Author:Harry Collingwood [Collingwood, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, pirates, sea, A&A
ISBN: 9781775459408
Publisher: The Floating Press
Published: 2012-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

“The entrance to the harbour is exactly in line with our jib-boom-end just now,” explained Johnson in high good-humour; “but I guess you would never know it unless you was told; would you, colonel?”

“That indeed I should not,” answered Lance; “and even now I scarcely know how to believe you.”

Lance might well say so, for the whole coast-line in front of them presented an apparently unbroken face of rocky cliffs of various heights, from about thirty to two hundred feet, backed by grassy slopes thickly dotted with dense clumps of trees of various kinds, many of which glowed with the most brilliant tints from the flowers with which they were loaded. Immediately ahead, where Johnson had said the entrance to the harbour lay, a great irregular mass of low jagged rocks projected slightly beyond the general face-line of the cliffs, and behind it was a gap which had the appearance of being caused by the projecting mass of rock having at some remote period broken away and slipped into the sea. The brig, however, continued to stand on boldly, and when she had arrived within about three cables’-lengths of the shore, it became apparent that the large mass of rock ahead, or rather on the lee bow by this time, the brig having luffed a trifle, was entirely detached from the island, leaving a narrow channel of water between it and the cliffs behind it. But it was not until the brig had actually borne away to enter this channel that the entrance to the harbour revealed itself. Then indeed it was seen that the cliff behind, instead of preserving an unbroken face, curved inwards in the form of a cove, the eastern and western arms of which consisted of two projecting reefs jutting out toward the mass of rock in front of them, which in its turn now revealed its true shape, which was that of a crescent, the horns of which overlapped the two projecting reefs forming the eastern and western sides of the harbour-entrance, and acted as a perfect natural breakwater, effectually protecting the harbour itself in all weathers.

Winding her way through the short narrow channel between the rock and the cliffs, the brig hauled sharply round the western point and shot into the cove or harbour itself, which consisted of an irregularly-shaped expanse of water some two hundred acres in extent. At the entrance the rocks on both sides sloped steeply down into the deep blue water; but further in they were fringed along their bases by a beautiful white sandy beach which widened as it approached the bottom of the bay, the land on each side sloping more gradually down to the water, and finally spreading out, where the water ceased, into a broad and lovely valley which stretched inland some three miles, rising gradually as it receded until it became lost among a group of hills which formed the background of the picture.

At anchor in the bay were three hulks, no doubt the three

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