Mostyn made no attempt to follow its course with his eyes. Holding a hand to his brows he gazed in the direction in which he expected to see land.
A vivid glare overhead, as the rocket threw out a series of blue star-shells, revealed what he wanted to know. Eighty or a hundred yards ahead was a line of cliff, fronted by a gently shelving stretch of sand. The boat had struck on the apex of a reef. She was neither on a lee nor a weather shore, but rather on the dividing line of each.
"Good enough," shouted Peter encouragingly. "Light the lantern, Mahmed."
The boy succeeded in getting the lamp alight. Even its feeble glimmer put a different complexion upon things.
Beckoning the lascars aft, Mostyn sent one of them back again to bend the warp to the anchor and throw the latter overboard, in case the badly damaged boat should be washed off the reef.
This done, the question arose: how were the women and Preston to be taken ashore?
"Take Mr. Preston," said Olive. "I can walk."
"Easy enough if it's shoal water right up to the beach, Miss Baird," rejoined Peter, "That we'll have to find out. I think I'll rope you together."
Preparations for abandoning the boat having been completed, Peter led the way, holding aloft the lantern. Behind him came the two lascars, carrying the helpless Acting Chief. Olive followed, helping Mahmed to assist Mrs. Shallop, who was uttering unheeded complaints about everybody and everything. To guard against the possibility of any of the party being swept away by the undertow, the halliards had been unrove and were used as a life-line.
It was not an easy passage. The rocks were of coral and irregular in shape, with fairly deep fissures and sharp, jagged crags. Over these ledges the breakers surged, throwing clouds of spray twenty feet or more into the air.