, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in
a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have
been heard a mile away.

The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which,
when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high
and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing
with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us
along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The
laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air,
uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness
against the wall of night. The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and
rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on
the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and
fro, were painfully distinct.

"Cotch suthin'!" shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller
with the slack end of the dingy's painter. Delicate furrows for a moment
cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a
roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her
beam-ends. The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen
power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away. It cut and
lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we
could. The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was
driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a
harbor. After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now
was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at
hand.

"Put her up in de win', or we'se gone, sho'!" shrieked young Rastus, who
had crawled aft.

"Gone where?" cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now
visible braced against the tiller.

Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and
then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred.

"How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the
craft yawed heavily.

"I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy.

"W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se
wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n."

So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and
the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass
of breakers pounding upon the outer reef.

"Yo' 'spec' to jump dat