d ahead, to
spring like fiends to the task of bringing the Pyrenees up on the wind.
That land ahead, a surf-washed outer reef, would be perilously close
when it revealed itself in such a fog.

Another hour passed. The three watchers aloft stared intently into the
pearly radiance. "What if we miss Mangareva?" Captain Davenport asked
abruptly.

McCoy, without shifting his gaze, answered softly:

"Why, let her drive, captain. That is all we can do. All the Paumotus
are before us. We can drive for a thousand miles through reefs and
atolls. We are bound to fetch up somewhere."

"Then drive it is." Captain Davenport evidenced his intention of
descending to the deck. "We've missed Mangareva. God knows where
the next land is. I wish I'd held her up that other half-point," he
confessed a moment later. "This cursed current plays the devil with a
navigator."

"The old navigators called the Paumotus the Dangerous Archipelago,"
McCoy said, when they had regained the poop. "This very current was
partly responsible for that name."

"I was talking with a sailor chap in Sydney, once," said Mr. Konig.
"He'd been trading in the Paumotus. He told me insurance was eighteen
per cent. Is that right?"

McCoy smiled and nodded.

"Except that they don't insure," he explained. "The owners write off
twenty per cent of the cost of their schooners each year."

"My God!" Captain Davenport groaned. "That makes the life of a schooner
only five years!" He shook his head sadly, murmuring, "Bad waters! Bad
waters!"

Again they went into the cabin to consult the big general chart; but the
poisonous vapors drove them coughing and gasping on deck.

"Here is Moerenhout Island," Captain Davenport pointed it out on the
chart, which he had spread on the house. "It can't be more than a
hundred miles to leeward."

"A hundred and ten." McCoy shook his head doubtfully. "It might be done,
but it is very difficult. I might beach her, and then again I might put
her on the reef. A bad place, a very bad place."

"We'll take the chance," was Captain Davenport's decision, as he set
about working out the course.

Sail was shortened early in the afternoon, to avoid running past in
the night; and in the second dog-watch the crew manifested its regained
cheerfulness. Land was so very near, and their troubles would be over in
the morning.

But morning broke clear, with a blazing tropic sun. The southeast trade
had swung around to the eastward, and was drivi