The little smudge expanded just as it had, though ever so much more slowly, for Ben on his floating spar. It did grow into an island, and when the sun went down, they could see the clear outline of Cone Mountain. The stars trooped up from the sea, and on and on towards it they sailed, until they could distinguish the Twin Horns, stretching out darkly into the water, and the mountain loomed up high in the air. They had neither chart nor pilot, but the Captain, as boyishly eager to reach the harbour as Sally, instead of casting anchor outside, kept the North Star to her course. Carefully sounding with the lead, they glided between the two dark capes and rested on the placid bosom of Rainbow Bay. The anchor went down with a splash, Sally almost after it in her impatience. She was all for going ashore. That strip of sand was so white in the moonlight, the feathery crown of Royal palms waved a soft invitation—and Ben might be very near.
But the Captain of the North Star said, "Not till dawn." So Sally disappeared down the companionway, and entered her cabin. Through the porthole she tossed a kiss towards that gleaming strip of sand, then uttered a prayer of pure gratitude, and tried to fall asleep to the lapping of the water against the ship's side.
But sleep would not come in spite of the wave's lullaby. Every nerve vibrated with excitement. As the old Salthaven folk used to say of children so wrought up over the morrow's journey to Boston-town that they were neither fit for food or slumber, she was "journey-proud." And yet that journey was over but a few feet of peaceful water, to that strip of sand that had paled to a ghostly white in the silent
