e got near its edge from the phosphorescent
glitter of the surf breaking over the coral ledge, excepting at the
place where the Silver Queen had steered through the rocks and breakers
and entered the calm sheet of water within.

The pirates ashore on the island and on board the junks were all too
busy to notice us, and indeed their eyes must have been wonderfully
acute to have done so through the darkness that enveloped sky and sea
alike, swallowing our little barque up in its folds; so, when we got
well outside the reef and beyond the line of breakers Ching Wang put up
a small sprit-sail, which he had been thoughtful enough to take out of
the long-boat when he had secured the sampan, rigging it on top of one
of his oars, and stepping it forward like a lug.

We then kept the wind which we knew was south-west on our port hand and
pretty well abeam, steering as nearly as we could guess to the northward
and westward, according to Captain Gillespie's directions to me; for
there was not light sufficient yet to see my little pocket-compass so as
to take the proper bearings for making a straight course to fetch the
mouth of the Canton river.

When daylight came, fortunately, not a trace of the reef or the ship and
pirate craft could be seen, though Ching Wang peered over our starboard
quarter, where we ought to have sighted any trace of them, while I
shinned up the little mast too for a better look-out.

Nothing was to be seen, not even a passing sail--only the rolling sea
far and wide as far as the eye could reach, now lit up by the early dawn
and rose-coloured in the east, where the sun, just rising above the
horizon, was flooding the heavens with crimson tints, that presently
changed to gold and then gave place to their normal hue of azure. This
the ocean reflected with a glorious blue, seeming to be but one huge
sapphire, except where crystal foam flecked it here and there from the
topping of some impatient wavelet not content to roll along in peace
till it reached the shore.

I could, of course, look at my compass now, and I noticed that by
keeping the wind abeam we had been working in the right direction during
the night, the head of the sampan now facing pretty nearly nor'-nor'-
west, "and a little westerly too," as Tim Rooney enjoined on me at
parting.

Ching Wang told me in his pigeon English that we must have already run
from thirty to forty miles--"one hunled li," he said; so, we had
therefore accomplished a