the night.

"Hang to her!" screamed Archie.

Skipper Bill smiled grimly as the sea came aboard. It broke and swept
past. He expected no more; but more came--more and still more. The
schooner was now tossing in a boiling pot from which the spray
rose like steam. Bill caught the deep boom of breakers. The _Spot
Cash_ was somewhere inshore. The water was shallowing. She was
fairly on the rocks. Again Bill shouted a warning to the boys to
save themselves when she struck. He caught sight of a low cliff--a
black shadow above a mass of moving, ghostly white. The schooner was
lifted by a great sea and carried forward. Skipper Bill waited for
the shock and thud of her striking. He glanced up at the spars--again
screamed a warning--and stood rigid. On swept the schooner. She was
a long time in the grip of that great wave.

Then she slipped softly out of the rough water into some placid place
where the wind fluttered gently down from above.

* * * * *

There was a moment of silence and uttermost amazement. The wind had
vanished; the roar of the sea was muffled. The schooner advanced
gently into the dark.

"The anchor!" the skipper gasped.

He sprang forward, stumbling; but it was too late: the bowsprit
crumpled against a rock, there was a soft thud, a little shock, a
scraping, and the _Spot Cash_ stopped dead.

"We're aground," said Bill.

"I wonders where?" said Jimmie Grimm.

"In harbour, anyhow," said Billy Topsail.

"And no insurance!" Archie added.

There was no levity in this. The boys were overawed. They had been
afraid, every one of them; and the mystery of their escape and
whereabouts oppressed them. But they got the anchor over the bow; and
presently they had the cabin stove going and were drying off. Nobody
turned in; they waited anxiously for the first light of day to
disclose their surroundings.

CHAPTER XXVIX

_In Which Opportunity is Afforded the Skipper of the
"Black Eagle" to Practice Villainy in the Fog and He
Quiets His Scruples. In Which, also, the Pony Islands and
the Tenth of the Month Come Into Significant Conjunction_

Aboard the _Black Eagle_, Skipper George Rumm and Tommy Bull, with the
cook and three hands, all of Tom Tulk's careful selection, were
engaged, frankly among themselves, in a conspiracy to wreck the
schooner for their own profit. It was a simple plan; and with fortune
to favour rascality, it could not go aw