The Cruise of the Dainty | Page 8

old mate turned out, without being called, to relieve me.
"We have not got a breeze yet," I observed as he came on deck.
"No, Master Ned, and we shan't get one during my watch either; and maybe not when the sun is up again," he answered.
Tom was right. When I came on deck the next morning the sea was as calm as before. Though it appeared impossible that we could have moved our position, I was greatly surprised, on looking away to the westward, to see what I at first took to be the masts of a vessel rising above the horizon. I pointed them out to my brother who had just come on deck. He told me to go aloft with a telescope and examine them more minutely. I then discovered that they were trees growing on a small island, apparently cocoanuts, or palms of some sort. Beyond, to the south and west, were several islands of greater elevation, some blue and indistinct, but others appeared to be covered with trees like the nearer one, while between us and them extended from north to south a line of white surf distinctly marked on the blue ocean. On reporting to Harry what I had seen, he said that the surf showed the existence of a barrier reef surrounding the islands. "We may find a passage through it, but sometimes these reefs extend for miles without an opening through them. A strong current must be setting from the eastward towards it, or we should not have been drawn so far during the night, for certainly there was no appearance of an island in that direction at sundown."
We soon had convincing proof that Harry was right in his conjecture. There could be no doubt that a current was setting us towards the land, for the trees gradually rose higher and higher above the water, and at length we could see them from the deck, while the white line of surf breaking on the reef became more and more distinct. At the same time a slowly moving, at first scarcely perceptible swell, which Fanny called the breathing of the ocean, passed ever and anon under the vessel, lifting her so gently that the sails remained as motionless as before. It was difficult indeed to discover that there was any movement in the mirror-like surface of the deep, and yet we could feel the deck rise and fall under our feet. The awning was rigged, and Mary and Fanny were seated in their easy-chairs under it, Mary reading aloud while her sister worked. Nat, who had placed himself near them, cross-legged on a grating, to listen, with a marline-spike and a piece of rope, was practising the art of splicing, in which he had made fair progress. "I say, Ned, I wish you would show me how to work a Turk's head," he exclaimed.
I went to him and did as he asked me. This made Mary stop reading; and Fanny, looking out towards the island, remarked, "How near we are getting. I am so glad, for I want to see a real coral island, and that of course is one. I suppose we shall anchor when we get close to it, and be able to go on shore." Harry, who overheard her, made no reply, but looked unusually grave, and told me to bring the chart from below. Spreading it out on the companion-hatch, we again, for the third or fourth time, gave a careful look at it.
"I cannot understand the set of this current," he said. "It probably sweeps round the island. But we are being carried much closer than I like to be in so perfect a calm. If we get a breeze it will be all right, but--"
Just then the sails gave several loud flaps, as if some one had shaken them out, and the schooner rolled now to one side, now to the other. Her head had moved so as to bring the swell abeam. Once having begun, she went on making the same unpleasant movements. It was evident that the swell had increased.
"Is there no way to stop her from doing that?" asked Mary.
"Not till the wind fills her sails," answered Harry. "I hope, however, that we shall get a breeze before long."
Harry did not say this in a very cheerful tone. He soon afterwards beckoned Tom Platt to him, and I saw them talking earnestly together for some minutes. I joined them. They were discussing the probable set of the current, which was at present sweeping us at the rate of at least three knots an hour towards the reef.
"We might keep her off it, at all events, until a breeze springs up," remarked Tom.
"We'll have the boats out, then, and do our best," said my brother, and he