still!"

Fortunately, we had a weather cloth over the bow, which prevented the
sea from pouring in and swamping us when the cutter dipped under; while,
as all of us remained quiet and our dead weight was more towards the
stern than forwards, the boat's natural buoyancy prevailed and she rose
up like a cork.

The worst might have been over, as Draper had said; still, we were not
`out of the wood' yet, gust after gust assailing us, and the waves
racing up madly astern, when, dividing, they would tower up on either
side of our frail craft, threatening destruction for the moment ere they
rolled onward again--we, all the while, fleeing before the fury of the
storm we knew not whither, powerless alike to shape a course or guide
our boat.

All that our skilful coxswain could do was to prevent the cutter from
shipping a sea, no matter how the wind took us, or whether we ran with
the billows or athwart them, as sometimes happened from the sudden shift
of the gale, at whose beck and call we were; for, one moment going north
or west into the open sea, the next recklessly careering eastwards,
right in upon the rocks of the mainland, or dashing south amongst the
mazy little islands and islets round and about Zanzibar, where our
plight would be as perilous.

We had been boxing the compass like this for some four or five hours,
without the weather showing any signs of a mend, it being now late in
the afternoon; and our head turned towards Bagamoyo again for about the
fifth time that day since we began our circling experiences, when, just
as it was beginning to grow darker, though there had not been much light
about since noon, a ship hove in sight.

She was dead ahead of us, riding out the gale under steam.

The smoke of her funnels was trailing away to leeward and so mixing up
with the clouds that were banked on the horizon that old Draper, who was
looking out as well as steering, for he would not allow any of us to sit
on the thwarts, said he could not tell `t'other from which.'

Presently, however, as we surged onwards, carried down upon her at the
rate of twelve knots or more, Draper could distinguish the smoke from
the clouds; ay, and the ship herself.

"By the Lord!" he cried, looking at Mr Chisholm, his face all aglow and
his voice heartier than I ever heard him speak before, "it's the
_Mermaid_, sir."

"The _Mermaid_, coxswain!" ejaculated Mr Chisholm, at once jumping to
his feet and taking a sight himself, shading