COCOS— THE ISLE OF PIRATES 221 



these, one cloud lifted with amazing rapidity and 

 revealed Cocos Island, clear and green, as the hand- 

 kerchief of a conjurer is raised and displays a 

 bouquet of exquisite flowers where a moment before 

 there had been nothing. 



I climbed at once up to the bow where I com- 

 manded a wider prospect. As Cocos — alive with 

 legends of pirate hoards of gold, with every head- 

 land and inlet named after some brigand of the 

 sea — as Cocos appeared before us, our approach 

 to the island became perfect, — our escort began to 

 form. As we neared it, great numbers of dolphins, 

 those souls of drowned sailors, raced toward us 

 in tens and tens and twenties, and gathered in all 

 but solid layers about the bow and along the sides. 

 I have never seen such hosts packed together. 

 When we slowed up so that we could photograph 

 them to better advantage, they all slackened speed 

 and merely dipped and curved lazily in one spot, 

 sighing as they exhaled. 



Long before the island showed any detail, boob- 

 ies, the long-familiar red-foots, and a wholly new 

 green-foot, hailed us as the newest things in con- 

 venient perching places, the best dead trees they 

 had ever seen, and our ratlines and wireless were 

 crowded so that the birds touched each other. A 

 few frigatebirds passed, some pure white terns 

 swooped in the distance and — Cocos vanished. 

 Over it, dark clouds materialized out of nothing, 

 and the smoothness of the forested mountains be- 

 came blurred and streaked with rain. Then a 

 great curved arch of pale grey etched into the black 



