distance of from five to a dozen miles, on which Captain Cook's
ship, the _Endeavour_, was nearly cast away, in his first voyage.

Soon after daybreak, the hurricane came down with redoubled fury. The
brig was hove-to under close-reefed fore-topsails. She behaved well;
and we hoped, believing that we were still some thirty miles or more
from the coast, that she would not near the reefs till the gale had
abated. An anxious look-out, however, was kept all day to leeward. My
father did not tell my mother and Edith the danger we were in, but
merely begged them to remain in the cabin.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the first mate, who
had been seated in the main-top looking out, came down on deck, and gave
my father the alarming intelligence that he saw a line of breakers to
leeward, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach.

"Could you discover no opening in them?" asked my father.

"I am not certain at this distance that there is none, though the line
of surf appeared to me without a break for its whole length," was the
answer.

"It will take us some time to drift so far, at all events," observed my
father; "and before then the wind may come down."

The mate looked anxiously to the eastward. "I don't see any sign of
that," he answered.

"We must trust in Providence, then," said my father. "However, I will
go aloft; and if we can discover an opening, we will endeavour to carry
the ship through it."

I followed my father to the main-top, and stood looking out with him for
some minutes. At length it appeared to me that about half a mile to the
southward there was a space where the ocean was much less agitated than
in other parts. I pointed it out to my father.

"You are right," he said, after a pause. "It may afford us the means of
escape; for should the gale continue during the night, no human power
can save us--long before it is over, we should be on the reef."

Having accordingly taken the bearings of the opening, he descended the
rigging.

The operation of keeping away, when a ship has been hove-to, is at all
times a dangerous one, and requires the most careful management, as the
sea may otherwise strike her, and wash everything from her decks. The
crew were ordered to their stations. The first mate, with a couple of
trusty hands, went to the wheel.

"Up with the helm!" cried my father, waiting till an enormous sea had
passed by us. "Brace round the fore-yard!"