At night the body of clouds advancing higher up the sky smothers the
whole quiet gulf below with an impenetrable darkness, in which the sound
of the falling showers can be heard beginning and ceasing abruptly--now
here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy nights are proverbial with the
seamen along the whole west coast of a great continent. Sky, land, and
sea disappear together out of the world when the Placido--as the saying
is--goes to sleep under its black poncho. The few stars left below the
seaward frown of the vault shine feebly as into the mouth of a black
cavern. In its vastness your ship floats unseen under your feet, her
sails flutter invisible above your head. The eye of God Himself--they
add with grim profanity--could not find out what work a man's hand is
doing in there; and you would be free to call the devil to your aid with
impunity if even his malice were not defeated by such a blind darkness.

The shores on the gulf are steep-to all round; three uninhabited islets
basking in the sunshine just outside the cloud veil, and opposite the
entrance to the harbour of Sulaco, bear the name of "The Isabels."

There is the Great Isabel; the Little Isabel, which is round; and
Hermosa, which is the smallest.

That last is no more than a foot high, and about seven paces across,
a mere flat top of a grey rock which smokes like a hot cinder after
a shower, and where no man would care to venture a naked sole before
sunset. On the Little Isabel an old ragged palm, with a thick bulging
trunk rough with spines, a very witch amongst palm trees, rustles a
dismal bunch of dead leaves above the coarse sand. The Great Isabel has
a spring of fresh water issuing from the overgrown side of a ravine.
Resembling an emerald green wedge of land a mile long, and laid flat
upon the sea, it bears two forest trees standing close together, with