h the planet herself was
completely hidden by the dense masses of cloud that drove wildly athwart
the firmament, her light filtered through. Presently I was able to see
as far as the outer edge of the reef, where the surf, brilliantly
phosphorescent, plunged madly down upon it and burst into leaping
fountains of spray that came driving over the wreck like heavy rain,
though I knew it was not rain by the bitter, salt taste of it on my
lips. The surface of the water all round the wreck and on either hand--
in fact, over the whole of the weather portion of the reef--was a mass
of swirling, phosphorescent foam, which rose and fell as the rollers
came sweeping across the reef. It was these rollers that were causing
the ship to roll on her bed of coral, while occasionally one heavier
than the others would lift her bodily, break furiously over her, and
shift her a foot or more toward the inner edge of the reef, as I judged
by the feel of her, before it dashed her down again.

Instinctively my glances flew to where the boat should lie. Yes, thank
God! she was still where I had left her, held down mainly, I believed,
by the weight of the things that I had put in her, for when a sea broke
over the deck the water surged past her to leeward with quite weight
enough to wash her off had she been empty. I rushed at her, snatched
the rope which I had bent to her stem head, led it across the deck to
the stump of a stanchion, and made it fast with a clove hitch, thus
ensuring that the boat should not be washed off the deck so long as the
rope held. Then I stood for a minute or two, looking about me and
taking careful note of all the details of the situation.

It was in all essentials the complete realisation of the fear which had
haunted me ever since the wreck, and which, but a short time before, I
had been inclined to deride as highly improbable--the gale, the heavy
sea sweeping in across the reef, and the only question whether the wreck
would be battered to pieces where she lay or be washed off to founder in
the deeper water of the lagoon. A heavier sea than any that had
preceded it, surging in at that moment and making a clean breach over
the wreck, washed me off my feet, and would have swept me overboard had
I not chanced to have in my hand the rope by which I had secured the
boat. It lifted the wreck, slued her nearly half round, and swept her a
good fathom nearer that danger point, the inner edge of the reef; and I
began