They were still more or less under the shelter of the land, but the size of the waves had increased alarmingly, and more than one white crest toppled into the little craft. Soon they were up to their ankles in water, about which the dead fish floated. “Bail um water out,” said the Kanaka, pulling a little harder to make up for the deficiency when Dave shipped his oars. The boy seized the tin and bailed furiously, but each time he got the dory nearly empty another curling wave hit the prow and hissed its way along the gunwale, slopping over the edge ominously as it went. The stolid demeanour and dogged perseverance of the Kanaka helped Dave to keep up his spirits, although there were times when he saw no earthly hope of their getting back to the shore, especially when one wave, angrier than the rest, spun the tiny craft half round and left it half full. “Bail um,” the Kanaka urged, heading the boat round again into the teeth of the wind. “Bail um,” indeed, Dave did, for his very life. Had another wave hit them at that moment the dory would have sunk, but the fates were kind, and he got most of the water out before more came in. When the situation seemed as desperate as it very well could be, the moon began to show a faint gleam, in which Dave could dimly discern the outlines of the island, and a little while later, as though tired of toying with its victims, the wind dropped suddenly. Dave and the Kanaka had about three miles to row to the beach, and both were utterly exhausted by the time the dory grounded. Tempest, who, naturally, had feared they were both blown out to sea, lectured the pair of them in a fatherly fashion. “And as for you, Jim,” he said, turning to the Kanaka, “I should have thought you had more sense than to take such chances with an off-shore wind like that blowing. If you hadn’t got back with the dory I’d have pulled your ears off.” Jim grinned. “Sea she no tell me about her fool tricks,” he replied in his curious polyglot English picked up partly from the cosmopolitan crowds in stokeholds and partly in the Philippines.