er, and intently following its course I presently became convinced
that it was continuous, with a channel that opened out close ahead of
us, and broad on our lee bow.

This channel was exceedingly narrow and tortuous, but a rapid survey of
it satisfied me that the wind was free enough to allow the ship to
traverse it, and I at once determined to make the attempt. There was no
time for hesitation; whatever was to be done must be done at once. I
therefore hailed Polson to keep the ship away a couple of points; and a
minute later the _Mercury_ had slid into the channel, and was sweeping
rapidly along it to the north-east. For good or for evil the die was
cast; for the direction of the wind and the exceeding narrowness of the
channel precluded any possibility of return, and a couple of hours would
now decide the momentous question, whether or not we were to bring the
whole adventure to a premature conclusion by leaving our bones, and
those of the ship, on that deadly coral reef.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE PIRATE JUNKS.

To con a ship into and along a narrow winding channel, with no
possibility of return, and with the certain knowledge that the slightest
mistake, the smallest error of judgment, meant the destruction of the
vessel, and the drowning of every individual on board her, was nervous
work for a lad of my years. As I stood there on the royal yard, with my
arm round the masthead to steady myself upon my somewhat precarious
perch, and my gaze concentrated upon the thin line of unbroken water
that twisted hither and thither through the seething turmoil of yeasty
froth, swirling and boiling on either hand, I burst into a drenching
perspiration. For it must be remembered that I had assumed the enormous
responsibility of plunging the ship into the inextricable situation
which I have indicated upon the impulse of a moment, generated by a
conviction that in no other manner could we hope to escape from the
labyrinth of shoals in which we had become involved. Furthermore, I had
been spurred to the act by the hope, rather than the certainty, that the
channel along which we were now sweeping with what, to my
apprehensiveness, seemed headlong speed, offered us an unobstructed
passage to open water. Yet now, when retreat was impossible, I began to
fear that I had been fatally mistaken; for at a certain spot in the
channel along which I proposed to take the ship I saw that the water,
which happened to have been unbroken at