et to work to get some
coconuts to drink, both for ourselves and the boat's crew when
they returned. Yorke ascended a very tall palm--about sixty feet in
height--like a native, and began throwing down the young nuts. I took
a shorter tree near by, and was leisurely twisting off the heavy nuts,
when he, who had a good view of the sea, called out to me that it had
fallen calm.

"And what I don't like, Drake, is this," he added--"there's a dull,
greasy look on the water over to the eastward there, and I'd like to
be on board the Francesca instead of being here. I don't like it, I can
tell you, and I'm sorry we did not go off in the boat."

I, in my fatuous, youthful conceit, laughed at his forebodings.

"It's only a New Britain squall--a lot of wind for ten minutes, then a
power of rain for another twenty, and then it'll be over."

Yorke, however, was too old and experienced a seaman to disregard
the signs of coming danger. He quickly descended from his tree, and I
followed suit.

"There's something more than a squall coming, my lad. Let us cut through
the bush across to the weather side of the island, and try and stop the
boat. We can do it if we are quick."

The island was less than a mile in width, even at its broadest portion,
which was where we had landed; so, after a hurried drink, we picked
up our rifles and started off to try to intercept the boat as she was
pulling down the outer and eastern shore. But before we had made two
hundred yards, we came to a dead stop, our progress being barred by a
dense thicket of thorny and stunted undergrowth. We turned aside and
skirted the thicket for a quarter of a mile, then tried again, with the
same result--it was absolutely impossible to force our way through the
obstacle.

By this time the air had become stiflingly hot and oppressive, and the
rapidly darkening sky presaged the coming storm. From every pore in our
bodies the perspiration was streaming profusely, and our hands and faces
were scratched and bleeding.

"We must go back," said Yorke, "we cannot possibly get to the other side
of the island through this damnable scrub. The only thing we can do is
to run along the inner beach of the island till we come to its end, wade
across the reef, and try to stop the boat before she has gone too far.
This is no common squall, I'm afraid--it's going to be a hurricane. Come
on."

We started off at a run, along the hard sand, but before we had done the
first quarter of