His vessel was now more exposed to the wind, so that he drove past the banks and scattered islands rapidly, and he noticed that there was not so much as a crow on them.

Upturned mussel-shells, glittering in the sunshine, showed where crows had been at work, but there was not one now visible.
Felix thought that the water had lost its clearness and had become thick, which he put down to the action of the wavelets disturbing the sand in the shallows.

Ahead the haze, or mist, was now much thicker, and was apparently not over a mile distant.

It hid the islands and concealed everything.

He expected to enter it immediately, but it receded as he approached.