elapse before the stranger could
arrive at the reef, if she was making for it, as seemed certain.

At length, after what appeared to me an interminable period of suspense,
the blackness of the eastern sky melted into a pallor that spread along
the horizon even as I watched it, revealing the long, low hummocks of
swell slowly heaving in ebony. The lower stars dimmed and vanished as
the pallor strengthened and warmed into a delicate primrose tint,
spreading to right and left and upward as it did so. Then star after
star went out before the advance of the light that turned the indigo of
the zenith into purest ultramarine; the primrose hue in the east flushed
into orange; a great shaft of white light shot suddenly upward from its
midst, and a spark of molten, flaming gold sprang into view, darting a
long line of liquid fire across the gently heaving bosom of the sea.
The spark grew into a throbbing, palpitating, dazzling blaze; and in an
instant it was day: the stars had disappeared, the sky glowed in purest
sapphire, the placid ocean laughed under the beams of the triumphant
sun. The air, which a few minutes before had carried a sudden touch of
chill in it, came warm to the skin, the breeze freshened a trifle; and
at length I was able to secure a clear and convincing view of the
stranger. She was indeed a junk, as I had surmised; and she was now
undoubtedly beating up toward the reef. But for that headstrong boy's
wilful disobedience of my instructions, she might have held on upon her
original course and by this time been hull-down, with the wreck out of
sight from her deck.

There was now no possibility of our evading a visit from her crew; but,
thank goodness! there would be ample time to prepare for that visit. I
reckoned that unless the breeze continued to freshen, she could not
possibly reach us in less than six or seven hours. The question with me
was, what sort of reception were we to give her when at length she
should arrive? There was, of course, the possibility that her crew
might be just plain, honest traders. In that case we might regard
ourselves as rescued from our imprisonment on the reef; and, having
regard to the precariousness of our situation on a wreck that would
perhaps go to pieces in the next gale--which might spring up at any
moment--it was important, especially for the women folk, that no chance
of rescue should be let slip.

The junk might be heading for us in response to one of the ma