ening from here, as the shore shelved somewhat abruptly, was about
the depth of four fathoms or thereabouts by the rudder post, where the
bottom could be seen, of soft, shining white sand, without a rock in
sight--so far, at least, as we were able to notice in the pale greenish
moonlight, by which we made our observations as well as we could, and
with some little difficulty, too.

"Guess we're in a pretty tight fix," said Captain Snaggs, after peering
up and down alongside for some time, Tom Bullover in the interim taking
the hand lead with him on to the poop and sounding over the taffrail at
the deepest part. "We can't do nuthin', though, I reckon, till
daylight, an' ez we're hard an' fast, an' not likely to float off, I'll
go below an' turn in till then. Mister Steenbock, ye'd better pipe the
hands down an' do ditter, I guess, fur thaar's no use, I ken see, in
stoppin' up hyar an' doin' nuthin'."

"Yous can go below; I vill keep ze vatch," replied the second-mate, with
ill-concealed contempt, as the skipper shuffled off down the companion
way again, back to his orgy with the equally drunken Flinders, who had
not once appeared on deck, after perilling the ship through his
obstinacy in putting her on the course that had led to our being driven
ashore.

The very first shock of the earthquake, indeed, which we felt before the
tidal wave caught us, had been sufficient to frighten him from the poop
even before the darkness enveloped us and the final catastrophe came!

As for Jan Steenbock, he remained walking up and down the deck as
composedly as if the poor _Denver City_ was still at sea, instead of
being cooped up now, veritably, like a fish out of water, on dry land.

He did not abandon his post, at any rate!

After a while, though, he acted on the skipper's cowardly advice so far
as to tell the starboard watch to turn in, which none of the men were
loth to do, for the moon was presently obscured by a thick black cloud,
and a torrent of heavy tropical rain quickly descending made most of us
seek shelter in the fo'c's'le.

Here I soon fell asleep, utterly wearied out, not only from standing
about so long, having been on my legs ever since the early morning when
I lit the galley fire, but also quite overcome with all the excitement I
had gone through.

I awoke with a start.

The sun was shining brightly through the open scuttle of the fo'c's'le
and it was broad daylight.

It was not this that had roused me, t