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All we could do was to keep the sail hoisted a few feet up, and to bale out the water as fast as it washed over the gunwale. Night now came on, adding to the horrors of the scene. On and on we went, Mudge sitting at the helm, and steering the boat in a way which a good seaman only could have done. Tillard offered to relieve him.
Tillard having repeatedly begged Mudge to let him take the helm, Mudge at last agreed to his offer, desiring to be called in a couple of hours, or immediately should there be the slightest change; and in a moment, almost, he was asleep. Tillard ordered Tamaku to keep a look-out ahead, while we four younger ones went to sleep.
We must trust to Providence, as we have done heretofore, and not expect the worst till it comes upon us." "We are ready, I hope, for whatever is to happen, Mr Mudge," said Tillard; "and we know that you will do the best that is to be done under the circumstances." Though it would be satisfactory to run into a snug harbour, yet I could not help wishing that the land was farther off.
Those were plied lustily by Tillard, and Harry, and I; and before we had time for much more thought the boat was driven on the beach which formed the inner shore of the lagoon. How we had got there we could scarcely tell: all we knew was that we had been mercifully preserved.
The troops upon whom this duty fell were the 2nd Ghurkhas, the 1st Dorset and the Derbyshire, with the Gordon Highlanders in reserve. The first to cross were the gallant Ghurkhas, led by Colonel Travers, Captains McIntyre, Bower, and Norie, and Lieutenant Tillard; these succeeded in crossing unhurt, but with the loss of 30 men, and Major Judge and Captain Robinson.
We had, besides, a surgeon, a master's assistant, the captain's clerk and the purser's clerk, who made up the complement in our berth. My chief friend among the men was Dick Tillard, an old quartermaster, to whom I could always go to get instruction in seamanship, with the certainty that he would do his best to enlighten me.
He thanked me very much; and the rest of the party wishing us good-bye, set off with their thick sticks as arms, and a supply of ducks and eggs, wild-fowl, and cocoa-nuts for provisions, leaving us as much as we could require for a couple of days. As soon as they were gone, Tillard and I set to work on the forge.
I asked Mudge if he could tell what o'clock it was. "It's too dark to see the hands of my watch, but I judge that it is some time past midnight," he answered. I groaned, for I thought it must be nearly daybreak. "God has taken care of us thus far, and he will take care of us, if he thinks fit, till morning," observed Tillard; "we must not give in, however bad things look."
We had been standing on for some distance, when an exclamation from Tillard made me look towards the land, over which hung a dense black cloud. Directly afterwards, a loud rushing noise reached our ears, resembling the continuous roar of thunder, mingled with the sound of a downpour of rain. It was the voice of the hurricane.
Some way on we discovered another opening in the reef, through which we might have passed, had we known of it, with greater ease than by the one through which we had entered. "We must go out by that opening, if Mr Mudge determines to put to sea," observed Tillard; "though, without a compass or chart, I doubt whether it will be wise to leave this island, where we have an abundance of food."
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