nlight, her head-yards laid
square, the fore and aft sails flowing in the sheets as she fell off
with wide wings and the wind on her quarter, and flew down inside the
reef.

"Five minutes after we too entered this maelstrom chasm, and, though the
helm was hove hard up, and the after-sails shivered, yet, before the
'Scourge's' bows, going at the rate she was, could turn the sharp angle
of that water-gate, her port bilge grated against a coral ledge, and
grooved and broomed the planks and copper away like so much sea-weed!
But yet that slight graze never stopped us a hair's weight, and, with
additional sail, we rushed after our pilot, mile after mile, through
reef, ledge, breakers, inlets, and keys, now braced sharp up, and again
going free, until at last the fellow, having run us a dance of full ten
miles, once more emerged into the open water, close jammed on the wind,
steering nearly due east.

"There, Hardy!" exclaimed the commodore, "I am tired of talking; suppose
you take up the thread of the yarn. Domino, another bottle of tinta!"

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE WRECK OF THE "CENTIPEDE."

"Gun bellows forth to gun, and pain
Rings out her wild, delirious scream;
Redoubling thunders shake the main,
Loud crashing falls the shot-rent beam.
The timbers with the broadsides strain;
The slippery decks send up a steam
From hot and living blood; and high
And shrill is heard the death-pang cry!"

"She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull."

Piron turned his gaze toward the first lieutenant, moved away the full
glasses of wine, which he had never raised to his lips since the
commodore began, and, resting his bloodless cheek on his other hand,
listened.

"It's vera interesting indeed." "Tear an' ages, boy! Fire away!" quoth
the Scotchman and his Milesian crony in a breath.

Hardy threw his arm over the shoulder of Harry Darcantel as if it was a
pleasant Corinthian column to lean upon, and breaking off the ashes of
his cigar on the rim of a wine-glass which he had specially devoted to
that purpose, he forthwith began:

"I am quite confident, gentlemen, that I can not describe what afterward
took place so well as Commodore Cleveland, but, at all events, I'll do
my best. Nor do I remember very distinctly the events of the night after
we got out of the Musk