her island
of the Dutch Indies, and so, for the next three or four days, I sailed
steadily on without further incident.

About a week after meeting with the hostile blacks, half a gale sprang
up, and I busied myself in putting the ship into trim to weather the
storm, which I knew was inevitable. I happened to be looking over the
stern watching the clouds gathering in dark, black masses, when a strange
upheaval of the waters took place almost at my feet, and a huge black
fish, like an exaggerated porpoise, leaped into the air close to the
stern of my little vessel.

It was a monstrous, ungainly looking creature, nearly the size of a small
whale. The strange way it disported itself alongside the ship filled me
with all manner of doubtings, and I was heartily thankful when it
suddenly disappeared from sight. The weather then became more
boisterous, and as the day advanced I strove my utmost to keep the ship's
head well before the wind; it was very exhausting work. I was unable to
keep anything like an adequate look-out ahead, and had to trust to
Providence to pull me through safely.

All this time I did not want for food. Certainly I could not cook
anything, but there was any quantity of tinned provisions. And I fed
Bruno, too. I conversed with him almost hourly, and derived much
encouragement and sympathy therefrom. One morning sometime between the
fifteenth and twentieth day, I was scanning the horizon with my customary
eagerness, when suddenly, on looking ahead, I found the sea white with
the foam of crashing breakers; I knew I must be in the vicinity of a
sunken reef. I tried to get the ship round, but it was too late. I
couldn't make the slightest impression upon her, and she forged stolidly
forward to her doom.

A few minutes later her keel came into violent contact with a coral reef,
and as she grated slowly over it, the poor thing seemed to shiver from
stem to stern. The shock was so severe that I was thrown heavily to the
deck. Bruno could make nothing whatever of it, so he found relief in
doleful howls. While the vessel remained stuck on the rocks, I was
looking out anxiously from the rigging, when, without a moment's warning,
a gigantic wave came toppling and crashing overboard from the stern,
overwhelming me in the general destruction that followed. I was dashed
with tremendous force on to the deck, and when I picked myself up,
bruised and bleeding, the first thing I was conscious of was a dea