The captain drew a pistol and looking him straight in the eye said: "Another word of that kind from you, Waters, and you'll eat lead.

You know me well enough to know that I keep my word." The man cowered away and Robert saw that it was no vain threat.

Waters devoted his whole attention to an oar, and did not speak again.
"We'll strike the island in two or three hours," the captain said with great confidence.
The dawn continued to struggle with the stormy sky, but its progress was not promising.

It was only a sullen gray dome over a gray and ghastly sea, depressing to the last degree to men worn as they were.

But in about two hours the captain, using glasses that he had taken from his coat, raised the cry: "Land ho!" He kept the glasses to his eyes a full two minutes, and when he took them down he repeated with certainty: "Land ho! I can see it distinctly there under the horizon in the west, and it's the island we've been making for.