Time went on, and the boys began to grow visibly fatter. It was Tuesday evening, and we hoped, putting on all steam as we were doing, to reach Tanaki by the small hours of Wednesday morning, in good season to relieve the four unhappy souls still, as we believed, detained there in captivity. We were strained on the very rack of excitement, indeed, with our efforts to arrive before the savages could take any further step; and the boys\' anxiety for their parents\' and their sister\'s safety had naturally communicated itself to us, as we listened to their story. Why, it was that very evening that Martin had told us the rest of his strange tale—how his father and mother, with his younger [pg 73] brother Calvin and his sister Miriam, had been confined by the savages in the grass-hut temple, while he and Jack were put to lie in an open out-house hard by, guarded only by a single half-intoxicated Kanaka. Well, in the middle of the night, those two brave boys had silently gnawed their ropes asunder, and creeping past their guard had stolen away to the beach in the desperate effort to escape in search of assistance. There, they luckily found the mission boat hauled down on the shore; and waiting only to take a can of water from the spring close by, and a bunch of half-ripe bananas from a garden on the harbor, they had put forth alone on their wild and adventurous voyage across the lone Pacific. I can tell you, it brought the tears to our eyes more than once, rough sailors as we were, to hear the strange story of their hopeless sail, and it made our blood boil to learn how these ungrateful savages had repaid the earnest and devoted life-labor of the unhappy missionaries.

[pg 74] "No wonder him hungry," that young monkey Nassaline said, with profound condolence, "if him don\'t hab nuffin to eat for ten day long but unripe banana." Anything that concerned the human stomach always touched a most tender and responsive chord in Nassaline\'s sympathies.

At eight bells when my watch was up, I went off for a quiet snooze to my cabin. I knew I should be wanted for hot work about three in the morning, for I didn\'t expect to effect the rescue without a hard fight for it; so I thought it best to get what sleep I could before arriving at the islands. So I lay in my berth, with my eyes shut, and a thin sheet spread over me (for it was broiling hot tropical weather), and I was just beginning to doze off in comfort, when suddenly I felt something move under me like a young earthquake. Next minute I was jolted clean out of my bed, with such a jerk that I thought at first we were all going to sleep on the bed of the ocean.

"Halloo," I cried out to Jim up atop, rushing [pg 75] out of my cabin. "What\'s up? Anything wrong? What\'s happened?"

"Grazed a reef, I guess," Jim shouted back, calmly. "No land in sight, but shoal water and breakers ahead. We seem to be in danger."

Cool chap, Jim, under no matter what circumstances. But this looked serious. In a second I was up, and peering out over the bows into the dark black water. The Albatross had slowed, and was reversing engines. All round us we could see great heaving breakers.

"No land hereabouts," Jim sung out, consulting the chart once more. "We ought to be at least five miles to suth\'ard of the Great Caycos Band Reef."

As he spoke, I saw Martin\'s white face appearing suddenly at the top of the companion-ladder. He flung up his hands in an agony of despair. "Oh, how terrible!" the poor lad blurted out in his misery. "I ought to have remembered! I ought to have told you! Father says the charts hereabouts are all many [pg 76] miles wrong in their bearings. The Caycos Reef lies six or seven knots south by west of the point it\'s marked at!"

In a ferment of anxiety I turned up our other Sydney charts at once to test his statement. Sure enough there was a discrepancy, a considerable discrepancy, both in latitude and longitude, between the two maps. At the margin of one I read this vague and uncomfortable note—"These islands are reported by certain navigators to lie further south and west than here laid down, and have never been accurately surveyed by good authorities. Careful navigation by day alone is recommended to master mariners."

Jim looked at me, and I looked at Jim. What on earth could we do in such a fix as this? To go on in the dark, with unknown reefs before us, was to imperil the Albatross and all on board; to cast anchor where we stood and hold back till daylight was to risk not arriving in time to rescue the unfortunate missionary with [pg 77] his wife and family. I glanced at the boy\'s white face as he stood by the companion-ladder, and made up my mind at once. Come what might, I must push forward and save them.

"Slow engines," I called down the pipe, "and proceed half-speed till further orders. Jim, go for\'ard, and keep a sharp eye on the breakers. As soon as we\'re clear, we\'ll steam ahead full pelt again, and risk going ashore sooner than leave these poor folks on the island to be cruelly massacred."

"Thank you," the boy said, with an ashy face, and lay down upon the deck, unmanned and trembling. His lips were as white, I give you my word, as this sheet of paper I\'m this moment writing upon.

For a hundred yards or so we slowed, and went ahead without coming to any further stop; then suddenly, a sharp thud—a dull sound of grating—a thrill through the ship; and Jim, looking up from in front, with a cool face as usual, called out at the top of his voice, but [pg 78] with considerable annoyance, "By Jove, we\'re aground again!"

And so we were, this time with a vengeance.

"Back her," I called out, "back her hard, Jenkins!" and they backed her as hard as the engines could spurt; but nothing came of it. We were jammed on the reef about as tight as a ship could stick, and no power on earth could ever have got us off till the tide rose again.

Well, we tried our very hardest, reversing engines first, and then putting them forward again to see if we could run through it by main force; but it was all in vain. Aground we were, and aground we must remain till there was depth of water enough on the reef to float us.

Fortunately the tide was rising fast, and three hours more would see us out of our difficulties. Three hours was a very serious delay; but I calculated if we got off the reef by two in the morning, we should still have time to reach Tanaki pretty comfortably before seven. We must enter the harbor by daylight, no doubt, [pg 79] which would perhaps be dangerous; because when the savages saw us arrive, they might make haste to............