CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
HOW HELP CAME IN TIME OF NEED.
The shock was so sudden that the half-awakened and helpless occupants of the boat made no effort to move, but clung to the thwarts of the boat, while the mast, with its heavy rain-saturated sail, snapped off short and fell over the side, dragging by its cords, as the boat rose again after its dive, gliding up a hillock of water, halted for a moment on the summit, and then glided down again.
This was repeated two or three times, and each with less violence, after which, to the surprise and joy of all, the little vessel rose and fell easily as the sea undulated, the officers knowing at once that they had struck upon a reef, which they had but just touched, and then had been carried over it into the calm water of a lagoon, where they rocked peacefully and safely, while only a short distance away the waves were thundering upon the coral rock, and fretting and raging as they roared, apparently wroth at not being able to reach their escaping prey.
"No water to signify," said the mate, as Billy Widgeon and Small baled hard till their dippers scraped the bottom without success.
The captain did not speak, but pressed his wife's hand, while for the first time Mrs O'Halloran displayed emotion by taking her half-numbed child to her breast, and sobbing aloud.
The major did not move, but laid one hand on Mark's knee and gave it a firm grip, sighing hard the while, and then there was silence for a time, as the gig rocked easily in the darkness, while the thunderous roar of the breakers grew less violent; and, instead of being deluged with spray as every billow curved over, there was a sensation as of shelter and warmth which pointed to the fact that the boat must have drifted behind rocks as into some channel; but the intense darkness rendered everything obscure.
"Cheer-ri-ly, mates," said a voice suddenly, as a slight splashing was heard.

"We're not a-going to be drowned--dead this here time, for I've just touched bottom with the hitcher." "Now, my lads," said the captain gravely, "our lives have been spared, thank Heaven! and we are to see the light of another day." There was again silence, with the muffled roar of the breakers farther away than ever, and as the boat rocked away slowly with the same gentle motion, the wet, cold, and misery were forgotten by one after another, the darkness helping, the occupants of the little craft dropped off to sleep, one of the last being Mark.
Cramped, faint, and miserable, the lad woke at last with a start, to lie with his eyes open staring straight up at the blue sunlit sky, his mind for the time being a perfect blank.

In fact it was some minutes before he realised that he was in the bottom of the boat, with his head resting upon Bruff's curly coat, and that Jack was huddled up close to him staring down into his face with an inquiring look, which, being interpreted, really meant, Where is the food?
Mark struggled up so painfully that he felt ready to lie down again; but he persevered and knelt in the bottom of the boat, to see as strange a sight as had ever before met his eyes.

For, in spite of their cramped positions, every soul on board was sleeping heavily, the men in the bottom of the boat forward making pillows of each other, the tired ladies clinging together in the stern, and the officers amidships--the extreme stern with its limited space having been left to Mark, Bruff, and the monkey.
Haggard, pale, some with faces blackened with powder, others with their heads bound up with handkerchiefs and bandages which showed the necessity for their application, and all in the sleep which comes of utter exhaustion.
The ladies, with their hair dishevelled and their wet garments clinging to them, evoked most of the lad's pity, which was the next moment withdrawn for his father, who looked ghastly pale, and lay back with his head against the side of the boat, his hand resting upon that of Mr Morgan, whose face was buried in his chest as he leaned against a thwart.
The first-mate, too, crouched amidships in a very uneasy position, where he had tried to settle down with the major so as to leave more room.
While the latter seemed the most placid of all, and lay back with half a cigar in his teeth--one which had evidently been cut in two, for there was no sign of the end having been lit.
Mark gazed round in a half-stupefied way for some minutes, hardly realising what it all meant, and it was only by scraps that he recalled the events since the fight in the cabin.
But by degrees all came back, even to the grazing of the reef and the gliding into calm water, and he looked to the right, to see about a mile away a long line of white foam, whose sound came in a low murmur, while between them and it lay blue water quite smooth and unruffled, save that it heaved softly, and far beyond the line of white foam there was the sunlit sea.
Sunlit, for, save to his left, there was not a cloud to be seen.

The sky was of an intense blue, and the cloud that remained was peculiar-looking--fleecy and roseate, and hanging over the centre of a beautiful land whose shore was of pure white sand, rising right out of which and close to the water were the smooth straight columns of the cocoa-nut trees with their capitals of green.
He could see little but these beautiful vegetable productions, save farther along the shore, and beyond the belt of cocoa-nut trees a pile of rocks ran right down into the water; but from a glimpse here and there it was evident that there were tall trees and high ground beyond the palms.
Greatest boon of all to his eyes was the sun, which was not yet high, but whose warm beams provided him with an invigorating bath and seemed to send life and hope and strength into his cramped and chilled limbs.
He turned to look in another direction, and found that the boat was within a few yards of the pure white sands of a sort of spit or point which ran down into the lagoon, whose limpid waters were sheltered by the barrier reef; and as he wondered how it was that they had not drifted quite ashore he realised that the sail with its yard half sunken beneath the surface had caught in a piece of jagged coral rock, which rose from the bottom covered with its freight of animation, and to this they were anchored.
"Shall I wake them ?" thought Mark as he looked round him at the sleeping people; but he did not stir, for the act seemed cruel.