en suddenly to
put up her helm and to steer directly for the shore.

"Good heavens!" cried Adair; "the Arab isn't going to attempt to carry
his vessel through those breakers?"

"He is, though, sir," observed Snatchblock. "It's a pretty sure sign
that he has got a cargo of slaves aboard. Poor beings! not many of them
will reach the beach alive."

Adair immediately steered the boat towards the dhow, though he had
little hope of reaching her in time to prevent her from running on
destruction. Several shots were fired to make her heave-to, but the
Arab crew heeded them not; and Adair had got almost within a cable's
length of the breakers when the doomed vessel was seen plunging in their
midst, to be cast in a few seconds on the shingly beach.

Wildly the sea broke over her, and almost as if by magic, her bulky
hull, melting away, exposed to view a hundred or more black forms
struggling in the water, endeavouring to make their way to dry land.
Some of the unfortunate beings succeeded, but others were carried back
into the surf, and, hurled over and over, were lost to sight, none of
them being drifted out as far as the boat.

All this time Adair was pulling in towards the breakers. He saw that
the Arab crew, who had been the first to reach the shore, were urging on
the blacks to run towards a thick wood, the outer edge of which was a
few hundred yards only from the beach.

"I think we can do it," he said to Snatchblock; "I have been through
worse breakers than those in a less buoyant boat than ours. If we don't
manage to get on shore, the Arabs will carry off every one of the
slaves."

"She'll go through it, sir," answered Snatchblock, looking round at the
breakers.

"We might save some of the poor wretches, at all events. Give way, my
lads!" cried Adair, and the boat, urged forward by the stout arms of the
crew, was speedily in the midst of the breakers. The sea struck her
abaft, and washed clean over her from stern to stem; and had not
Snatchblock aided Adair in hauling away on the yoke-line, she must have
broached-to. A lifeboat alone could have existed amid those heavy
breakers.

The next instant another sea struck her, washing over her whole length,
and covering everyone in her; but as it went right over the bows, only a
few inches of water remained. A third time she was deluged, and then
down she sank, it seemed, into comparatively smooth water, and glided up
easily on to the shelving beach.

The