Kurr-r-r-r! that was the noise we heard proceeding from our keel, then all was steady, all was still. And every man sprang from his hammock, every officer from his cot.
We were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, or rather the Mozambique Channel, with no land in sight, and we were hard and fast on the dreaded Lyra reef. A beautiful night it was, just enough wind to make a ripple on the water for the broad moon’s beams to dance in, a cloudless sky, and countless stars. We took all this in at the first glance. Safe enough we were—for the time; but if the wind rose there was the certainty of our being broken up, even as the war-ship Lyra was, that gave its name to the reef.
At the first shout from the man on the outlook in the Arrandoon, McBain rushed on deck. “Stand by both anchors. Ready about.” But these orders are, alas! too late. Kurr-r-r-r! The stately Arrandoon is hard and fast on the rocky bottom.
The ship was under easy sail, for although there was hardly any wind, what little there was gave evident signs of shifting. It might come on to blow, and blow pretty hard, too, from the south-east or east-south-east, and Mr Stevenson was hardly the man to be caught in a trap, to find himself on a lee shore or a rock-bound coast, with a crowd of canvas. Well for our people it was that there was but little sail on her and little wind, or, speedily as everything was let go, the masts—some of them at least—would have gone by the board.
Half an hour after she struck, the Arrandoon was under bare poles and steam was up.
The order had been given to get up steam with all speed. Both the engineer and his two assistants were brawny Scots.
“Man!” said the former, “it’ll take ye a whole hour to get up steam if you bother wi’ coals and cinders alone. But do your best wi’ what ye hae till I come back.”
He wasn’t gone long ere he came staggering down the ladder again, carrying a sack.
“It’s American hams,” he said; “they’re hardly fit for anything else but fuel, so here goes.”
And he popped a couple into the fire.