"Get out a sweep," Jabez said, "and bring her head round."

We had scarcely done so ere the first squall from behind struck us,
and in five minutes we were running back as fast as we had come. The
wind was at first south, but settled round to southeast. We got up a
little more sail now, and made a shift to keep her to the west, for
with this wind we should have been ashore long before morning if we
had run straight before it. The sea had been heavy--it was tremendous
now; and, light and seaworthy as the _Jane_ was, we had to keep baling
as the sea broke into her. Over and over again I thought that it was
all over with us as the great waves towered above our stern, but they
slipped under us as we went driving on at twelve or fourteen knots an
hour. I stood up by the side of Jabez, and asked him what he thought
of it.

"I can't keep her off the wind," he said; "we must run, and by
midnight we shall be among the Scillys. Then it's a toss-up."

Jabez's calculations could not have been far out, for it was just
midnight, as far as I could tell, when we saw a flash right ahead.

"That's a ship on one of the Scillys," Jabez said. "I wish I knew
which it was."

He tried to bring her a little more up into the wind, but she nearly
lay over onto her beam-ends, and Jabez let her go ahead again. We saw
one more flash, and then a broad faint light. The ship was burning a
blue light. She was not a mile ahead now, and we could see she was a
large vessel. I had often been to the Scillys before, and knew them as
well as I did our coast, but I could not see the land. It was as Jabez
had said--a toss-up. If we just missed one of them we might manage to
bring up under its lee; but if we ran dead into one or other of them
the _Jane_ would break up like an egg-shell.

We were rapidly running down upon the wreck when the glare of a fire
on shore shone up. It was a great blaze, and we could faintly see the
land and a white cottage some hundred yards from the shore.

"I know it," Jabez shouted; "we are close to the end of the island; we
may miss it yet. Hoist the mainsail a bit."

I leapt up with another to seize the halyards, when a great wave
struck us; she gave a roll, and the next moment I was in the water.

After the first wild efforts I felt calm like. I knew the shore was
but half a mile ahead, and that the wind would set me dead upon it. I
loosened my tarpaulin coat and shook it off, and I found that with
mother's belt I could k