een lowered on the run when the
puff was at its height. Jacobsen, superintending the operation, ordered
them to throw the halyards down on deck and stand by, then went for'ard
on the lee-bow and joined Griffiths. Both men stared with wide-strained
eyes at the blank wall of darkness through which they were flying, their
ears tense for the sound of surf on the invisible shore. It was by this
sound that they were for the moment steering.

The wind fell lighter, the scud of clouds thinned and broke, and in the
dim glimmer of starlight loomed the jungle-clad coast. Ahead, and well
on the lee-bow, appeared a jagged rock-point. Both men strained to it.

"Amboy Point," Griffiths announced. "Plenty of water close up. Take the
wheel, Jacobsen, till we set a course. Get a move on!"

Running aft, barefooted and barelegged, the rainwater dripping from his
scant clothing, the mate displaced the black at the wheel.

"How's she heading?" Griffiths called.

"South-a-half-west!"

"Let her come up south-by-west! Got it?"

"Right on it!"

Griffiths considered the changed relation of Amboy Point to the
_Willi-Waw_'s course.

"And a-half-west!" he cried.

"And a-half-west!" came the answer. "Right on it!"

"Steady! That'll do!"

"Steady she is!" Jacobsen turned the wheel over to the savage. "You
steer good fella, savve?" he warned. "No good fella, I knock your damn
black head off."

Again he went for'ard and joined the other, and again the cloud-scud
thickened, the star-glimmer vanished, and the wind rose and screamed in
another squall.

"Watch that mainsail!" Griffiths yelled in the mate's ear, at the same
time studying the ketch's behaviour.

Over she pressed, and lee-rail under, while he measured the weight of
the wind and quested its easement. The tepid sea-water, with here and
there tiny globules of phosphorescence, washed about his ankles and
knees. The wind screamed a higher note, and every shroud and stay
sharply chorused an answer as the _Willi-Waw_ pressed farther over and
down.

"Down mainsail!" Griffiths yelled, springing to the peak-halyards,
thrusting away the black who held on, and casting off the turn.

Jacobsen, at the throat-halyards, was performing the like office. The
big sail rattled down, and the blacks, with shouts and yells, threw
themselves on the battling canvas. The mate, finding one skulking in the
darkness, flung his bunched knuckles into the creature's face and drove
him to his work.

Th