sounds which come in the stillness of the
night to affright and unnerve us. Sure enough, you couldn't have
counted ten before the report of guns was heard distinctly above the
distant roar of breakers; while flashes of crimson light, playing about
the reef, seemed to tell the whole story without another word from me.

"Those devils ashore are shooting the crew," cried I; "did man ever
hear such bloody work? I'll have a reckoning for this, if it takes me
twenty years. Lower away the boats, lads; I'm going to dance to that
music."

They swung the two longboats out on the davits, and the port crew were
in their seats, when Mister Jacob touched my arm and questioned my
order--a thing I haven't known him to do twice in ten years.

"Beg pardon, sir," said he, "but there's no boat that will help the
Santa Cruz to-night."

"And why, Mister Jacob--why do you say that?"

"Because she's gone where neither you nor I wish to go yet awhile,
Mister Begg."

I stood as though he had shot me, and clapping my glass to my eye I
took another look towards the northern reef and the ship that was
stranded there. But no ship was to be seen. She had disappeared in a
twinkling; the sea had swallowed her up. And over the water, as an
eerie wail, lasting and doleful, came the death-cries of those who
perished with her.

"God rest their poor souls and punish them that sent them there," said
Peter Bligh fervently; but Mister Jacob was still full of his prudent
talk.

"We're four miles out, and the moon will be gone in ten minutes, sir.
You couldn't make the reef if you tried, and if you could, you'd find
none living. This sea would best the biggest boat that ever a ship
carried--it will blow harder in an hour, and what then? We've friends
of our own to serve, and the door that Providence opens we've, no right
to shut. I say nothing against humanity, Captain Begg, but I wouldn't
hunt the dead in the water when I could help the living ashore."

I saw his point in a moment, and had nothing to say against it. No
small boat could have lived in the reefs about the northern end of the
island with the sea that was running that night. If the devils who
fired down upon the poor fellows of the Santa Cruz were still watching
like vultures for human meat, fair argument said, the main island would
be free of them for us to go ashore as we pleased. A better opportunity
might not be found for a score of months. I never blame myself, least
of all now, whe