, captain; what's that?"

"Land ho!" shouted Larry O'Hale at that moment, springing up on the
thwart and holding on to the foremast.

All the rest leaped up in great excitement.

"It's only a cloud," said one.

"It's a fog-bank," cried another.

"I never seed a fog-bank with an edge like that," observed old Bob, "an'
I've sailed the salt sea long enough to know."

"Land it is, thank God," said the captain earnestly, shutting up his
telescope. "Get out the oars again, lads! We can't make it before
dark, but the sooner we get there the better, for landing on these coral
islands isn't always an easy job."

The oars were got out at once, and the men pulled with a will, but it
was late at night before they drew near to the land and heard the roar
of the surf on the coral reef that stood as a sentinel to guard the
island.

"Captain," said Will Osten, "the wind has almost died away, yet it seems
to me that the surf roars as violently as if a storm were raging."

"That surf never goes down in those seas, doctor. Even in calm weather
the swell of the big ocean gathers into a huge billow and bursts in foam
upon the coral islands."

"Surely, then," said Will, "it must make landing both difficult and
dangerous."

"It is, sometimes, but not always," replied the captain; "for a channel
of safety has been provided, as you shall see, before long. Take the
boat-hook, Goff, and look out in the bows."

The man rose and stood up with the boat-hook ready to "fend off" if
necessary.

A word or two here about the coral islands--those wonderful productions
of the coral insect--may perhaps render the position of the boat and her
subsequent proceedings more intelligible.

They are of all sizes and shapes. Some are small and low, like emeralds
just rising out of the ocean, with a few cocoa-nut palms waving their
tufted heads above the sandy soil. Others are many miles in extent,
covered with large forest trees and rich vegetation. Some are
inhabited, others are the abode only of sea-fowl. In many of them the
natives are naked savages of the most depraved character. In a few,
where the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ has been planted, the natives
are to be seen, "clothed and in their right minds." Wherever the gospel
has taken root, commerce has naturally sprung up, and the evils that
invariably follow in her train have in too many cases been attributed to
Christianity. Poor indeed must be that man's knowledge of the in