158 
WILD WINGS 
lease land from him and pay a fee for the hshing privileges. 
He is monarch of all he surveys, yet glad of the rare glimpse 
of strangers from the great and distant “ world,” especially 
of Americans, to whom he would gladly sell his big island, 
with its hue hshery privileges and supposed mineral deposits, 
for thirty thousand dollars. In the half hour of our stay he 
was so overwhelmingly kind that I shall do all I can to help 
him advertise his wares. 
The sea was fairly quiet upon the north side, and the 
“royal ” advice was strongly in favor of starting at once for 
Bird Rock, as the weather indications were suggestive of 
wind and plenty of it before long. So we sailed away, with 
the dying breeze following gently, directly from astern. In 
an hour we had made good progress, yet Bird Rock, which 
we could see, was still but a distant haze, and it was already 
evening, by the watch. Oars were brought out, and they and 
our backs bent to the task. At eight, as the sun sunk below 
the sea to the northwest, the Rock looked near, but it was 
half-past nine, under the last fading rays of the day and the 
silvery light of the welcome moon, when the great stately 
cliffs at last towered above us, and the sea-birds screamed 
and issued forth to meet us in the clouds of ghostlv forms. 
Already had the dynamite bomb crashed in welcome. A 
form hurried down the ladder, and a lantern waved from the 
pile of rocks, signalling to us where to make the venture. 
Calm as v:as the sea outside, some surf was rolling in upon 
the ledges. We must run the gauntlet and take our chances ; 
there could be no backing out now. So on we went to our 
fate. A sudden concussion almost threw us off our feet; we 
had struck a sulmierged rock. Then a following wave picked 
us up and hurled us against the pile. We all leaped out and 
held the boat against the undertow, and with mighty efforts, 
helped by succeeding waves, got her up a few feet farther. 
