The sun was lowering and birds of evening were beginning to brood
over the painted water when _The Aloha_ cast anchor. In the late
light the rugged sides of the island had an air of almost sinister
expectancy. There was a great silence in their windless shelter
broken only by the boom and charge of the breakers and the gulls and
choughs circling overhead, winging and dipping along the water and
returning with discordant cries to their crannies in the black rock.
Before the yacht, blazoned on a dark, water-polished stratum of the
volcanic stone, was the White Blade which Jarvo told them marked the
subterranean entrance to the mysterious island.
St. George and his companions and Barnay, Jarvo and Akko were on
deck. Rollo, whose soul did not disdain to be valet to a steam
yacht, was tranquilly mending a canvas cushion.
"The adon will wait until sunrise to go ashore?" asked Jarvo.
"_Sunrise_!" cried St. George. "Heaven on earth, no. We'll go now."
There was no need to ask the others. Whatever might be toward, they
were eager to be about, though Rollo ventured to St.
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