d water I had been able to put aboard the raft would only have
lasted a very few days.

For nearly a fortnight after the day of the great storm I kept on the
same course without experiencing any unpleasant incident or check, always
excepting the curious threatened wreck which I have just mentioned.

Just before dusk on the evening of the thirteenth day, I caught sight of
an island in the distance--Melville Island I now know it to be; and I was
greatly puzzled to see smoke floating upwards apparently from many fires
kindled on the beach. I knew that they were signals of some kind, and at
first I fancied that it must be one of the friendly Malay islands that I
was approaching. A closer scrutiny of the smoke signals, however, soon
convinced me that I was mistaken. As I drew nearer, I saw a number of
natives, perfectly nude, running wildly about on the beach and
brandishing their spears in my direction.

I did not like the look of things at all, but when I tried to turn the
head of the ship to skirt the island instead of heading straight on, I
found to my vexation that I was being carried forward by a strong tide or
current straight into what appeared to be a large bay or inlet. I had no
alternative but to let myself drift, and soon afterwards found myself in
a sort of natural harbour three or four miles wide, with very threatening
coral reefs showing above the surface. Still the current drew me
helplessly onward, and in a few minutes the ship was caught in a
dangerous whirlpool, round which she was carried several times before I
managed to extricate her. Next we were drawn close in to some rocks, and
I had to stand resolutely by with an oar in order to keep the vessel's
head from striking. It was a time of most trying excitement for me, and
I wonder to this day how it was that the _Veielland_ did not strike and
founder then and there, considering, firstly, that she was virtually a
derelict, and secondly, that there was no living creature on board to
navigate her save myself.

I was beginning to despair of ever pulling the vessel through, when we
suddenly entered a narrow strait. I knew that I was in a waterway
between two islands--Apsley Strait, dividing Melville and Bathurst
Islands, as I have since learned.

The warlike and threatening natives had now been left behind long ago,
and I never thought of meeting any other hostile people, when just as I
had reached the narrowest part of the waterway, I was startle