with Johnny Gorrie on his back, and in good company too.
Away we went. The sands were some miles past Yambuk. When we rode down upon them, what wonders lay before us! The tide was out. For leagues upon leagues stretched the ocean shore—a milk-white beach, wide as a parade-ground, level as a tennis-court, and so hard under foot that our horses' hoofs rang sharp and clear. Excited by the night, the moon, the novelty, they tore at their bits and raced one another in a succession of heats, which it took all our skill, aided by effective double bridles of the Weymouth pattern, to moderate. As for our companions, they were left miles behind.
We were at the turn, just abreast of "Lady Julia Percy Island," which lay on the slumbering ocean's breast like some cloud fallen from the sky, or an enchanted isle, where the fairy princess might be imprisoned until the Viking's galley arrived, or the prince was conveniently cast away on the adjacent rocks.
Far as eye could see shone the illimitable ocean, "still as a slave before his lord," star-brightened here and there. Southward a lengthening silver pathway rippled in the moon-gleam, shimmering and glowing far away towards the soft cloudland of the horizon. Tiny capes ran in from the forest border, and barred the line of vision from time to time. Sweeping around these, our excited horses speeding as they had become winged, we entered upon a fresh bay, another milk-white beach, fitted for fairy revels. While over all the broad and yellow moon shed a flood of radiance in which each twig and leaf of the
