e the shelter meant to die, for the power of the blast was
appalling.

Crawling back, I proceeded in the other direction, and found that I
could go what I guessed to be quite a dozen yards, feeling more and more
in shelter. Then all at once I reached a point where the wind came
through what afterwards proved to be a narrow pass between two masses of
rock, and I shrank back disheartened at the barrenness of my search.

In that black darkness it was very difficult to find my former position,
even in so confined a space, and I found myself completely going wrong,
and into the rushing wind, the effect being horribly confusing again.
But, after lying flat down on the sand, which kept flying up and nearly
blinding me, I grew more composed, and, resuming my search once more,
found where my two companions lay; and, after touching our wounded
sailor, and finding him lying as I had left him, I began to think of
what I could do to help him, but thought in vain. To give help was
impossible in the midst of that awful storm, and, utterly exhausted now,
I sank back and reached out my left hand once more to try and touch
Ching.

He was on the alert, and caught my hand in both his, grasping it firmly,
as if, boy as I was, he would gladly cling to me for protection; while
I, in my horror and loneliness, was only too thankful to feel the touch
of a human hand.

Then, amid the strange confusion produced by the roar of the wind and
thunder of the waves whose spray hissed over our heads, I lay wondering
what had become of Mr Brooke and the others--whether they had reached
the land, and were screened behind the rocks as we were; then about the
_Teaser_--whether she had been able to make the shelter of the river
before the typhoon came down upon them in all its fury.

I seemed to see the men at their quarters, with the spars lowered upon
deck, the boats doubly secured, and everything loose made fast. I
fancied I felt the throb of the engines, and the whirr of the shaft, as
it raced when the stern rose at some dive down of the prow; and the
sharp "ting-ting" of the engine-room gong-bell struck on my ears above
the yelling of the storm, for wild shrieks at times came mingled with
the one tremendous overpowering roar.

Then I began thinking again about Mr Brooke, and whether, instead of
lying there in shelter on the sand, I ought not to be striving with all
my might to find him; and all at once the roar over my head, the thunder
of the