et in front of him--save when a blaze from
Perboewatan or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with
a vivid glare.

At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a
gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be
reduced.

"Lower the foresail, Nigel," shouted the hermit. "I will close-reef it.
Do you the same to the mainsail."

"Ay, ay, sir," was the prompt reply.

Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the
foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the
same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail.

Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not
of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval
there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a
few moments the voyagers were almost stunned!

It is no figure of speech to say that the _world_ heard the crash.
Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval
pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the
earth.

The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously
various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the
volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid
blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was
falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with
flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the
hideous wreck!

The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in
silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with
an iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for
instant action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the
other hand, turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed
paddling with unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his
feelings and his opinion in the sharp exclamation--"Blown to bits!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION.

We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very
different scene.

A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the
last chapter--which we claim to have recorded without the slightest
exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible--Captain David
Roy, of the good brig _Sunshine_, received the letter