oo
good a turn already. Gascoigne, give me the helm."

"No, no, Easy."

"I say yes," replied Jack, in a loud, authoritative tone, "and what's
more, I will be obeyed, Gascoigne. I have nerve, if I haven't
knowledge, and at all events I can steer for the beach. I tell you,
give me the helm. Well, then, if you won't--I must take it."

Easy wrested the tiller from Gascoigne's hand, and gave him a shove
forward.

"Now do you look out ahead, and tell me how to steer."

Whatever may have been Gascoigne's feelings at this behaviour of our
hero's, it immediately occurred to him that he could not do better than
to run the speronare to the safest point, and that therefore he was
probably more advantageously employed than if he were at the helm. He
went forward and looked at the rocks, covered at one moment with the
tumultuous waters, and then pouring down cascades from their sides as
the waves recoiled. He perceived a chasm right ahead, and he thought if
the boat was steered for that, she must be thrown up so as to enable
them to get clear of her, for at every other part escape appeared
impossible.

"Starboard a little--that'll do. Steady--port it is--port. Steer
small, for your life, Easy. Steady now--mind the yard don't hit your
head--hold on."

The speronare was at this moment thrown into a large cleft in a rock,
the sides of which were nearly perpendicular; nothing else could have
saved them, as, had they struck the rock outside, the boat would have
been dashed to pieces, and its fragments have disappeared in the
undertow. As it was, the cleft was not four feet more than the width of
the boat, and as the waves hurled her up into it, the yard of the
speronare was thrown fore and aft with great violence, and had not Jack
been warned, he would have been struck overboard without a chance of
being saved; but he crouched down and it passed over him. As the water
receded, the boat struck, and was nearly dry between the rocks, but
another wave followed, dashing the boat farther up, but, at the same
time, filling it with water. The bow of the boat was now several feet
higher than the stern, where Jack held on; and the weight of the water
in her, with the force of the returning waves, separated her right
across abaft the mast. Jack perceived that the after-part of the boat
was going out again with the wave; he caught hold of the yard which had
swung fore and aft, and as he clung to it, the part of the boat on which