“No; but we ought to sight it to-morrow, and in these coral waters one likes to keep a good look-out. You never know when you may hit upon a new reef.”
The ship tore through the seas for half-an-hour, when there was a shout from the look-out, “Breakers ahead!”
The captain dashed to the wheel and put the helm down, and the schooner came up into the wind, shivering with the shock of the great seas as they struck her and washed the decks from stem to stern. The wind was howling through the rigging, cracking the sails like whip-lashes, now that the ship was no longer running before it, but a practised ear could hear a distant roar, distinct from that of the wind and seas, that broke on the ship. Both watches were hauling in the sheets and reefing, and then the schooner’s head was payed off a little so as to clear the shore, if shore it was. Benion and Allen were straining their eyes to leeward in the hope of seeing the danger, but they could distinguish nothing from the dark waste of grey water.
“This sort of thing makes me wish that we hadn’t put all our eggs in one basket,” said Benion. “If we had fetched up on that reef and got off it alive, we shouldn’t have a penny in the world.”
“We ought to have insured the box and shipped it to New York in one of the steamers,” replied Allen.
“It seemed such sheer folly to pay the insurance rates that Carter asked, I thought it was better to take the risk of shipwreck. If the gold is lost we shall probably go to the bottom with it. If we get home with it safe we can take it easy all our days. It’s a fair risk.”
The mate meanwhile had climbed into the top and presently reported that he could see breakers, but that they had cleared the corner of the reef, and might now stand away a little. The ship’s head fell off until the wind was again on the quarter, and she was running free. The two men were soaked to the skin with the spray when the vessel was close-hauled, but Benion would not go below to change, feeling that if this were land the captain was at least two hundred miles out of his reckoning, and they might go ashore at any moment. But several hours passed without more alarms, and he at last fell asleep on the hatch in his wet clothes. It was a troubled half sleep, in which every sound entered into his dreams mingled with the monotonous roar of the seas. Suddenly some one in his dream shouted “Land ahead!” There was a rush of booted feet past him; he started up, and saw a dark mass looming above the ship.
As she came up into the wind a sea struck her forward and stopped her dead, the next seemed to hurl her sideways, and before she could get way on she fell with a reeling shock upon the reef, rolled sideways amid the boiling surf, and each successive wave fell upon her with a hungry yell and swept her from stem to stern, hammering and grinding the wounded hull upon the sharp coral.
At the first shock Benion fell against the starboard bulwarks, and before he could grasp the slippery rail a great sea swept the deck and washed him to leeward into the darkness. Dazed and without power of reasoning, he allowed himself to drift, instinctively keeping his body upright in the water.