urst in, filling the apartment with spray, and scattering the embers of
the fire.

"I feared as much," said the captain, as he and the men started up to
gather together the pieces of glowing charcoal; "that shows the wind's
shifted another point; if it goes round two points more it'll smash our
boat to pieces. Look sharp, Tim."

"Lean well against the wind, me boy," cried Briant, in a warning voice.

Thus admonished, Rokens issued forth, and dashed across the open space
that separated the hut from the low ledge of coral rock behind which the
keel of the intended boat and its planking were sheltered. A very few
minutes sufficed to show Tim that all was fast, and to enable him to
place a few additional pieces of rock above the heap in order to keep it
down. Then he prepared to dart back again to the hut, from the doorway
of which his proceedings, were watched by the captain and as many of the
men as could crowd round it.

Just as the harpooner sprang from the shelter of the rock the blast
burst upon the bank with redoubled fury, as if it actually were a
sentient being, and wished to catch the sailor in its rude grasp and
whirl him away. Rokens bent his stout frame against it with all his
might, and stood his ground for a few seconds like a noble tree on some
exposed mountain side that has weathered the gales of centuries. Then
he staggered, threw his arms wildly in the air, and a moment after was
swept from the spot and lost to view in the driving spray that flew over
the island.

The thing was so instantaneous that the horrified onlookers could
scarcely credit the evidence of their eyes, and they stood aghast for a
moment or two ere their feelings found vent in a cry of alarm. Next
instant Captain Dunning felt himself rudely pushed aside, and Briant
leaped through the doorway, shouting, as he dashed out--

"If Tim Rokens goes, it's Phil Briant as'll go along with him."

The enthusiastic Irishman was immediately lost to view, and Glynn
Proctor was about to follow, when the captain seized him by the collar,
dragged him back, and shut the door violently.

"Keep back, lads," he cried, "no one must leave the hut. If these two
men cannot save themselves by means of their own strong muscles, no
human power can save them."

Glynn, and indeed all of the men, felt this remark to be true, so they
sat down round the fire, and looked in each other's faces with the
expression of men who half believed they must be drea