nearly as possible
midway between the reefs, and the anchor let go in twelve fathoms of
water, with sixty fathoms of chain outside the hawse-pipe. The canvas
was securely furled, the watch set, with one man told off to tend the
lead-line which was dropped over the side to show whether the anchor
held securely or not, and then nothing remained for them but to wait,
with what patience they could muster, for daybreak.

This was a somewhat trying ordeal; for the night was pitch dark--the
moon being new and not a star visible, the sky overcast, and the wind
fresh and at times gusty. Moreover, they could form but a very vague
idea of the dangers by which they were surrounded, the chart showing
nothing but a clear sea; and, to further increase their anxiety, there
was a heavy ground-swell rolling in from the westward, which caused the
ship to bury herself to her hawse-pipes. Altogether, what with the
uncertainty of their position, the inky darkness, and the ominous roar
of the breakers all round them, it was a very anxious time for everybody
on board the _Flying Cloud_.

At length, after what seemed an eternity of darkness, the harassed
watchers caught the first faint signs of returning day. The forms of
the clouds became dimly perceptible along the horizon to the eastward;
then the cloud-bank itself broke up, revealing little patches here and
there of soft violet-tinted sky, which rapidly paled, first to a pure
and delicate ultramarine, and then to a soft primrose hue before the
approaching dawn. The leaden-tinted clouds imperceptibly assumed a
purple hue, then their lower edges became fringed with gold; and
presently a long shaft of white light shot from the horizon half-way to
the zenith, tinging the higher clouds--now broken up into a crowded
archipelago of aerial islets--with flakes of "celestial rosy red," and
in another moment the golden upper rim of the sun's disk flashed on the
horizon, sending a long path of shimmering radiance across the bosom of
the heaving, restless sea; and it was day.

The awkward character of the predicament in which the ship was involved
now became sufficiently apparent. To the eastward and astern of her a
small island, measuring about two miles from north to south, was seen.
Its shores were indented and rocky, the surf beating upon them with
great violence; and between it and the ship, at a distance nowhere
greater than a mile, there lay an extensive crescent-shaped reef, almost
comp