Presently, a swelling, dashing sound came upon my ear, and I had a sort of vague consciousness that I had been hearing it before. The next instant I was broad awake and on my feet. Eight ahead, and so near that my heart stood still, was a long line of breakers, heaving and frothing. It was the coral reef girdling the island. Behind it, and almost casting their shadows upon the deck, were the sleeping mountains, about whose hazy peaks the gray dawn was just breaking. The breeze had freshened, and with a steady, gliding motion, we were running straight for the reef. All was taken in at a glance; the fell purpose of Bembo was obvious, and with a frenzied shout to wake the watch, I rushed aft. They sprang to their feet bewildered; and after a short, but desperate scuffle, we tore him from the helm. In wrestling with him, the wheel—left for a moment unguarded—flew to leeward, thus, fortunately, bringing the ship’s head to the wind, and so retarding her progress. Previous to this, she had been kept three or four points free, so as to close with the breakers. Her headway now shortened, I steadied the helm, keeping the sails just lifting, while we glided obliquely toward the land. To have run off before the wind—an easy thing—would have been almost instant destruction, owing to a curve of the reef in that direction. At this time, the Dane and the steward were still struggling with the furious Mowree, and the others were running about irresolute and shouting. But darting forward the instant I had the helm, the old cook thundered on the forecastle with a handspike, “Breakers! breakers close aboard!—’bout ship! ’bout ship!” Up came the sailors, staring about them in stupid horror. “Haul back the head-yards!” “Let go the lee fore-brace!” “Ready about! about!” were now shouted on all sides; while distracted by a thousand orders, they ran hither and thither, fairly panic-stricken. It seemed all over with us; and I was just upon the point of throwing the ship full into the wind (a step, which, saving us for the instant, would have sealed our fate in the end), when a sharp cry shot by my ear like the flight of an arrow. It was Salem: “All ready for’ard; hard down!” Round and round went the spokes—the Julia, with her short keel, spinning to windward like a top. Soon, the jib-sheets lashed the stays, and the men, more self-possessed, flew to the braces. “Main-sail haul!” was now heard, as the fresh breeze streamed fore and aft the deck; and directly the after-yards were whirled round. In a half-a-minute more, we were sailing away from the land on the other tack, with every sail distended. Turning on her heel within little more than a biscuit’s toss of the reef, no earthly power could have saved us, were it not that, up to the very brink of the coral rampart, there are no soundings. CHAPTER XXIV. OUTBREAK OF THE CREW