I looked, at first, in vain for the schooner.
'There she is,' I said at last.

But her new position, and the course she was now lying, puzzled me.

'They cannot mean to beat to sea,' I cried.
'That's what they mean,' said my uncle, with something like joy; and just then the schooner went about and stood upon another tack, which put the question beyond the reach of doubt.

These strangers, seeing a gale on hand, had thought first of sea-room.

With the wind that threatened, in these reef-sown waters and contending against so violent a stream of tide, their course was certain death.
'Good God!' said I, 'they are all lost.' 'Ay,' returned my uncle, 'a'-- a' lost.