eliness in her
movements. Her utmost pace was nine knots, but, as eight was more
economical for coal consumption, it was at that speed she moved. The
wreck of the _Grecian_ was out of the usual steam lane. She had, it
appeared, got off her course in a fog, had run foul of a half-ebb reef
which holed her in two compartments, and then been steered for the shore
in the wild attempt to beach her before she sank. She had ceased
floating, however, with some suddenness, and when the critical moment
came not all of her people managed to scrape off with their lives in the
boats. Those that stayed behind were incontinently drowned; those that
got away found themselves in a gale (to which the fog gave place), and
had so much trouble to keep afloat that they had no time left to make
accurate determination of where their vessel sank; and when they were
picked up could only give her whereabouts vaguely. However, they stated
that the _Grecian's_ mast-trucks remained above the water surface, and
by these she could be found; and this fact was brought out strongly by
the auctioneer who sold the wreck, and had due influence on the
enterprising Alexander. "Masts!" said Alexander, who daily saw them
bristling from a dock, "don't tell me you can miss masts anywhere."

But, as it chanced, it was only by a fluke that the salvage steamer
stumbled across the wreck at all. She wandered for several days among an
intensely dangerous archipelago, and many times over had narrow escapes
from piling up her bones on one or other of those reefs with which the
Red Sea in that quarter abounds. Tazzuchi navigated her in an ecstasy of
nervousness, and Kettle (who regarded himself as a passenger for the
time being) kept a private store of food and water-bottles handy, and
saw that one of the quarter-boats was ready for hurried lowering. But
nowhere did they see those mast-trucks. They did not sight so much as a
scrap of floating wreckage.

There seemed, however, a good many dhow coasters dodging about in and
among the reefs, and from these Kettle presently drew a deduction.

"Look here," he said to Tazzuchi one morning, "what price those gentry
ashore having found the wreck already? I guess they aren't out here
taking week-end trippers for sixpenny yachting cruises."

"No," said Tazzuchi, "and they aren't fishing; you can see that."

"Well, I give you the tip for what it's worth," said Kettle; and that
afternoon the steamer was run up alongside a dhow, wh