Ask Adams, he'll soon find one; and, mind you, send it up `wift' fashion, so as to lessen the risk of its getting blown away, bosun." "Aye, aye, sorr," said Tim, opening his eyes at this expedient of hoisting a sail like a pilot's signal, and starting to work his way forward again along the weather side of the deck.

"Begorra, you're the boy, sure, Misther Mackay, for sayin' through a stone hidge as well as most folk!" But the dodge succeeded all the same, and likewise had the advantage of steadying the vessel, which did not roll nearly so much when the after sail was hoisted, with the sheet hauled in to leeward; although, the Silver Queen bent over when she felt it, as if running on a bowline, notwithstanding that the wind was almost dead aft and she spurring on before it.
As the night came on it darkened more, the moon disappearing altogether and the sky becoming completely covered with black angry clouds; while heavy showers of cold rain pelted down on us at intervals from midnight till "four bells" in the middle watch.
Then the rain ceased and the heavens cleared a bit, a few stars peeping out; and the phosphorescent light from the sea enabled us to have a good view of the boiling waves around us, still heaving and tossing as far as the eye could reach, although the wind was perceptibly lessening.
An hour later its force had fallen to that of a strong breeze, and the captain had the topsails and mizzen-topgallant set, carrying on still full pitch to the north-east, notwithstanding that just before dawn it became pitch dark again and we couldn't see a cable's length ahead.
The starboard watch had been relieved shortly before this, but Mr Saunders remained up, as indeed had most of us since the previous afternoon; while Captain Gillespie, indeed, never left the deck once since the first suspicion of the typhoon.
He now yawned, however, the long strain and fatigue beginning to tell on him.
"I think I'll go below," he said; and, turning to Mr Mackay, all amiable again, especially at having carried his point of "carrying on" successfully in spite of the first mate's caution, he remarked with a sniff, "You see, Mackay, we've gone on all right and met no dangers, and it'll puzzle those blessed pirates, if they're yet in the land of the living, to find us at daybreak!" Just as he uttered these words, however, there was a tremendous shock forwards that threw us all off our feet, succeeded by a peculiar grating feeling under the ship's keel, after which, her heaving and rolling ceased as if she had suddenly sailed from amidst the waves into the calm water of some sheltered harbour.

A second shock followed soon, but not so violent as the first; and then, all motion ceased.
"By Jingo, she's aground!" snorted out "Old Jock," scrambling to his feet by the assistance of Mr Saunders' outstretched hand.

"Where on earth can we've got to?
there's no land here." Mr Mackay said nothing, although he had his suspicions, which indeed had led in the original instance to his remonstrance against the captain's allowing the ship to rush on madly in the dark; but, presently, as the light of morning illumined the eastern sky and we were able to see the ship's position, a sudden cry of alarm and recognition burst from both-- "The Pratas shoal!" This was their joint exclamation; and, on the sun rising a little later on, when the whole scene and all our surroundings could be better observed, the wonder was that the Silver Queen was not in pieces and every soul on board her drowned! To explain our miraculous escape, I may mention that this shoal, which Captain Gillespie and Mr Mackay so quickly named beyond question, was a circular coral reef almost in the centre of the China Sea, and about a hundred and thirty miles distant from Hongkong, absolutely in the very highway of vessels trading east and west.
Breakers encircled it, showing their white crests on every side, the sharp points of the coral composing the reef almost coming to the surface of the water, while at some spots it was raised above it.

In these latter places it was covered with rank grass, exhibiting incipient signs of vegetation; and, within the reef, inclosed by a lagoon some three miles wide that went completely round it, lay a small island, on which were several shrubs and a prominent tree on a slight elevation, which will in process of time become a hill, whereon stood also the remains of a pagoda, or Chinese temple, while pieces of wreck and bleached bones were scattered over the shores.