ns!" was now the cry; and they
_did_ hold on, fortunately, though, during that hour of calm, there was
more noise aloft than I had ever before heard on board a vessel. At
length the sea-breeze came creeping down to us; a cat's-paw filled the
lofty tapering sail, and passed, causing the canvas to flap heavily ere
it filled to the next. Another flap; then the sail swelled out gently
and "went to sleep," the nimble little hooker turned her saucy nose into
the wind's eye; a few bubbles drifted past her side as she gathered way,
a long smooth ripple trailed out on each side of her sharp bows, then
she heeled gracefully over to larboard as the languid breeze freshened
upon us, and presently down it came, half a gale of wind, burying us
half bulwark deep and making everything crack again as the boat gathered
way and darted off like a startled dolphin. And here Carera was within
an ace of making a mess of the whole business; for whilst we had been
tumbling about becalmed a current had got hold of us and had set us so
close in with the land that whilst rounding the point we actually passed
_through_ the breakers beating on the reef; and I am convinced that had
we been a couple of fathoms further to leeward the hooker would have
laid her bones there. However, the danger was come and gone in less
than a minute; it was the extreme point of the reef we had grazed so
very closely, and, once past it, we had a clear sea ahead and were out
of the reach of all further danger. It was Courtenay, however, who
actually saved the felucca; for at the supreme moment when the little
craft plunged into the breakers, and when, if ever, there was the utmost
need for coolness and self-possession, what must all hands do but plump
down upon their knees, calling upon Saint Antonio and Heaven knows how
many other saints to come and help them, Carera himself being one of the
foremost to do so, abandoning the tiller meanwhile, and leaving the
vessel to take care of herself, at the very moment of all others when
she most needed looking after. She of course shot into the wind's eye
in an instant, and in another minute the craft would have been on the
rocks, stern-foremost, and beating her bottom in, had not Courtenay--who
happened to be standing close by--sprung to the tiller and jammed it
hard a-weather, thus causing her to pay off and forge ahead before
losing steerage-way altogether.

Once fairly clear of the point, Carera put his helm up, and away