Page:A Sailor Boy with Dewey.djvu/49

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CAST ASHORE ON LUZON.
37

tropical growth. In the distance the mountain loomed up, surrounded by a veil-like mist.

"To port!" cried Watt Brown. "The breakers are too heavy here!" And we moved up the coast for a quarter of a mile further. Here there was something of a bay and the breakers came to an end. Nearer and nearer we crept to land until the first row of stately palms could be seen with ease. The mate was on the watch, and finally ordered us to port again, and five minutes later, we shot past a tiny coral reef and into the bay mentioned. Here the boat ran up upon the sands, and, throwing down our oars, we all leaped out and hauled her up still further.

"Thank God we're safe!" murmured Watt Brown, and took off his cap reverently. I did the same, and offered up a silent prayer for my safe deliverance from the perils of the deep. The bay we had entered was pear-shaped and probably five hundred feet deep by a hundred and fifty feet wide. The sandy beach at either side was many yards wide, but at the inner end the rocks and trees overhung the water. From a tropical standpoint it was an ideal spot for a painter, and I could not help but take in its beauty, even at such a trying time as this. Captain Kenny, however, "stuck up his nose" at it.

"A regular jungle," he snorted. "We can't live here."