“There,” cried the captain at last, after a weary chase, “it’s of no use, my lads, easy it is. I shall make for the land and try to get inside one of the reefs, doctor, before the storm bursts.”
“The schooner is not sailing away now,” I said eagerly.
“Not sailing, boy? Why she’s slipping away from us like— No, no: you’re right, lad, she’s— Pull, my lads, pull; let’s get aboard. That Malay scoundrel has run her on the reef.”
Chapter Five.
How we found Jack Penny.
The captain’s ideas were not quite correct. Certainly the little trading vessel had been run upon one of the many reefs that spread in all directions along the dangerous coast; but it was not the Malay who was the guilty party.
As far as I was concerned it seemed to me a good job, for it brought the schooner to a stand-still, so that we could overtake it. No thought occurred to me that the rocks might have knocked a hole in her bottom, and that if a storm came on she would most likely go to pieces.
Very little was said now, for every one’s attention was taken up by the threatened hurricane, and our efforts to reach the schooner before it should come on.