CHAPTER FIVE.
HOW WE FOUND JACK PENNY.
The captain's ideas were not quite correct.

Certainly the little trading vessel had been run upon one of the many reefs that spread in all directions along the dangerous coast; but it was not the Malay who was the guilty party.
As far as I was concerned it seemed to me a good job, for it brought the schooner to a stand-still, so that we could overtake it.

No thought occurred to me that the rocks might have knocked a hole in her bottom, and that if a storm came on she would most likely go to pieces.
Very little was said now, for every one's attention was taken up by the threatened hurricane, and our efforts to reach the schooner before it should come on.
It was a long severe race, in which we all took a turn at the oars, literally rowing as it seemed to me for our lives.

At times it was as if we must be overtaken by the fierce black clouds in the distance, beneath which there was a long misty white line.

The sea-birds kept dashing by us, uttering wild cries, and there was overhead an intense silence, while in the distance we could hear a low dull murmuring roar, that told of the coming mischief.
Every now and then it seemed to me that we must be overtaken by the long surging line, that it was now plain to see was pursuing us, and I wondered whether we should be able to swim and save our lives when it came upon us with a hiss and a roar, such as I had often heard when on the beach.
"We shall never do it," said one of the men, who half-jumped from his seat the next moment as the captain leaned forward from where he was rowing and gave him a sound box on the ears.
"Pull, you cowardly humbug!" he cried.