"Where away?" cried the captain.
"Broad on our weather-beam."
"Right you are!" was the quick response, just as there loomed through the darkness a lurid red light, like the eye of some huge sea-monster, that had reared its head above the boiling waves for a momentary view of the wild scene.
"That must be Largo Light," said the mate, somewhat doubtfully.
"Yes," replied the captain, with a look of great relief. "Now we know where we are, though it's not often I am so far out in my reckoning. Tell Mr. Rolf to keep her close to the wind, and I'll go forward and take a look at the chart."
So saying, Captain Barrett went away to his cabin to consult his charts, while the mate hurried to give his instructions to the man at the wheel.
An hour passed—an hour of darkness, storm and gloom.
Phil was beginning to feel very chilly in his wet clothes and started to go below, when the ship suddenly seemed to rise in the middle and then pitch forward again, with a dull, grating sound, the meaning of which he knew only too well.
"Breakers!" shouted the voice of the mate, from somewhere near the companion-way. "We are on the reef!"
As he spoke the red light went out, as if swallowed up by the angry sea, and then they knew the nature of the false beacon that had lured them on to destruction.