man
alone could give. "Breakers! Breakers! On the starboard bow!" It
reached right aft, sounding high above the hurricane.

"Starboard the helm!" cried the captain.

There were few on board who did not hold their breath, till they were
obliged to gasp for more. It seemed as if the last moments of the ship
and all on board were approaching. Yet there was no sign of terror; not
a man quitted his station. The captain sprang into the starboard
rigging and looked anxiously out on that side. His eye distinguished
breakers, and his ear the increased roaring of the seas, as they dashed
against the rocky impediment to their course. Would the ship weather
the reef, and if she did, were there more reefs ahead? On she flew; but
the compass showed that she had come up a little to the wind: still
there was now the danger, as her bows met the seas, of their breaking on
board.

"Hold on! Hold on for your lives!" shouted the second lieutenant, as he
and the boatswain, clinging desperately to the fore-stay, saw a huge sea
about to break over the ship's bows. On it came. It was upon them, and
over them it burst, deluging the deck, and almost tearing them from
their hold. The crew clung to whatever they could grasp. On rolled the
sea across the deck, with difficulty finding its way through the
scuppers, the greater bulk at length breaking open a port, and thus
getting free, a considerable quantity of water, however, finding its way
down below.

"If another sea like that comes aboard us, we shall be sent to the
bottom!" exclaimed old Grim, shaking himself from the water, which had
covered him from head to foot. "It's lucky you boys have got paws to
hold on by, like Master Queerface there, or you would have broken
biscuit for the last time."

Neither Bill nor Tommy made any answer. Tommy, in fact, was more
frightened than he had ever before been in his life, and Bill could not
help feeling that the ship was in no small danger. Still he thought to
himself,--"There's One looking after us who can help us better than we
can ourselves, and so why should I cry out till I have got something to
cry for?"

Many on board who saw the breakers, expected every instant to hear the
fearful crash of the ship driving on the pointed rocks, to see the masts
falling, and the seas come leaping triumphantly over the shattered
wreck; but it was not to be so.

The first danger was passed, and no other sign of breakers was
perceived. The