"Don't know, sir," replied Trull, shaking his head. "Never heard any thing like it."
"Are you sure it's not breakers?" demanded Kit. "I'm afraid we're drifting on the rocks. It's dead ahead too!"
But neither the captain nor Trull nor Donovan could believe it was the surf.
"We began to hear it over an hour ago," remarked the captain. "It sounded low then; we could just hear it: but it grows louder. It's either coming towards us, or else we are going towards it. I presume the storm drives us with it considerably."
"I tell you that it is some dangerous reef!" exclaimed Kit; "some hole or cavern which the water is playing through."
"It may be," muttered the captain. "Starboard the helm, Hobbs!"
At this instant a heavy, near explosion boomed out, followed momentarily by another and another.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Raed.
"Cannon!" shouted Wade: "it's a vessel in distress!"
"Impossible!" cried the captain. "No ship would fire cannon here, even if wrecked. There wouldn't be one chance in ten thousand of its being heard by another vessel."