Early the next morning, Percival turned out long before there were any sounds from the galley or dining-room.

The sun had not yet cleared the tree-tops to the east; the decks of the Doraine were still wet with dew.
A few sailors were abroad; a dull-eyed junior officer moodily picked his way through the debris on the forward deck.

Birds were singing and chattering in the trees that lined the shore; down at the water's edge, like sentinels on duty, with an eye always upon the strange, gigantic intruder, strutted a number of stately, bright-plumaged birds of the flamingo variety--( doubtless they were flamingoes); the blue surface of the basin was sprinkled with the myriad white, gleaming backs of winged fishermen, diving, flapping, swirling; on high, far above the hills, soared two or three huge birds with wings outspread and rigid, monarchs of all that they surveyed.

The stowaway leaned on the port rail and fixed his gaze upon the crest of the severed hill, apparently the tallest of the half dozen or so that were visible from his position.
With powerful glasses he studied the wooded slope.

This hill was probably twelve or fourteen hundred feet high.