The
apparent solitude and isolation of the place was as profound as the
silence which overhung everything.
Vickers made his way up the cliffs to their highest point and from its
summit took a leisurely view of his surroundings. He saw at once that
they were on an island, and that it was but one of many which lay spread
out over the sea towards the north and the west. It was a wedge-shaped
island this, and the cliffs on which he stood and the beach beneath
formed the widest side of it; from thence its lines drew away to a point
in the distance which he judged to be two miles off. Between him and that
point lay a sloping expanse of rough land, never cultivated since
creation, whereon there were vast masses of rock and boulder but no sign
of human life. No curling column of smoke went up from hut or cottage;
his ears caught neither the bleating of sheep nor the cry of
shepherd--all was still as only such places can be still. Nor could he
perceive any signs of life on the adjacent islands--which, to be sure,
were not very near. From the sea mists which wrapped one of them he saw
projecting the cap of a mountainous hill--that hill he recognized as
being on one of the principal islands of the group, and he then knew that
he and his companions had been set down on one of the outlying islands
which, from its position, was not in the immediate way of passing vessels
nor likely to be visited by fishermen.
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