Passing the weather and lee yard-arm gaskets round the yard in turn, and
hauling them taut and making them fast, I left all snug and trim.
From aft came faintly the clear command, "Full and by!" And promptly, for
by this time the force of the squall was already spent, the answer of the
man at the wheel, "Full and by, sir."
In this first moment of leisure I instinctively turned, as did virtually
every man aboard ship, to look for the sail that had been reported to the
north of us. But although we looked long and anxiously, we saw no sail, no
trace of any floating craft. It had disappeared during the squall, utterly
and completely. Only the wild dark sea and the wild succession of mountain
piled on mountain met our searching eyes.
A sail there had been, beyond all question, where now there was none.
Driven by the storm, it had vanished completely from our sight.
As well as we could judge by our lunar observations, the land was between
Paga River and Stony Point, and when we had sailed along some forty miles,
the shore, as it should be according to our reckoning, was less
mountainous.
It was my first glimpse of the Sunda Islands, of which I had heard so much,
and I well remember that I stood by the forward rigging watching the
distant land from where it seemed on my right to rise from the sea, to
where it seemed on my left to go down beyond the horizon into the sea
again, and that I murmured to myself in a small, awed voice:--
"This is Java!"
The very name had magic in it.
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