rrier reef.

In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoanut palms could be
made out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat.

He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on to
the channel, and deposited her in the sternsheets; then Dick.

In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast steeped, and the Shenandoah
left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of the
sea.

"You're not going to the island, Paddy," cried Dick, as the old man put
the boat on the port tack.

"You be aisy," replied the other, "and don't be larnin' your
gran'mother. How the divil d'ye think I'd fetch the land sailin' dead
in the wind's eye?"

"Has the wind eyes?"

Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind.
What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in the
South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and liked
them. But here he was out of his bearings.

However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case of
the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard
tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of
his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an
opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the
opening, and then take to the sculls and row her through.

Now, as they drew nearer, a sound came on the breeze--sound faint and
sonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers on the reef. The
sea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if vexed in its sleep
at the resistance to it of the land.

Emmeline, sitting with her bundle in her lap, stared without speaking
at the sight before her. Even in the bright, glorious sunshine, and
despite the greenery that showed beyond, it was a desolate sight seen
from her place in the dinghy. A white, forlorn beach, over which the
breakers raced and tumbled, seagulls wheeling and screaming, and over
all the thunder of the surf.

Suddenly the break became visible, and a glimpse of smooth, blue water
beyond. Button unshipped the tiller, unstepped the mast, and took to
the sculls.

As they drew nearer, the sea became more active, savage, and alive; the
thunder of the surf became louder, the breakers more fierce and
threatening, the opening broader.

One could see the water swirling round the coral piers, for the tide
was flooding into the lagoon; it had seized the little dinghy and was