"What do you make of this?" he exclaimed, as I called for the lead.
"Be quiet about it," I said to the hands that had started into
movement. "Look sharp now, and make no noise." Then I turned to the
mate, who was perplexedly rubbing one bare foot against the other
and measuring with his eye our distance from the shore. The _Sylph_
should have turned the point of the island without mishap, as she
had done scores of times.
"It's the volcano we have to thank for this," was my conjecture.
"Its recent activity has caused some displacement of the sea bottom."
Jackson's head went back in sudden comprehension. "It's a miracle
you didn't plow into it under full sail."
We had indeed come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster.
As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to
float clear with the tide."
The mate cocked a doubtful eye at Lakalatcha, uncomfortably close
above our heads, flaming at intervals and bathing the deck with an
angry glare of light. "If she should begin spitting up a little
livelier ..." he speculated with a shrug, and presently took
himself off to his bunk after an inspection below had shown that
none of the schooner's seams had started. There was nothing to do
but to wait for the tide to make and lift the vessel clear.
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