"Yes."
"How far is it?"
"Twenty miles, perhaps,—possibly less."
"Why can't we head the boat about, and run for it?"
"Because the wind is blowing on shore, and there's a heavy surf running."
"What of that?"
"Why, simply this, that if we run ashore on a long, flat beach, the boat will be beaten to splinters a mile or more from land."
"How?"
"By the waves; they would lift her up, and receding let her drop suddenly on the sands, splitting her to pieces in no time, and the very next wave would do the same thing for us. We must stay out here till the storm's over. There's nothing else for it."
The storm lasted long enough to make a furious sea, and the boys could do nothing but hold on to the boat's gunwales. As night came on the wind ceased, very suddenly, as it frequently does in Southern seas, but the waves still rolled mountain high.