With an ejaculation of dismay Sir Edgar darted from my side and rushed to the cabin; and as he did so I gave the order to call the watch below. The outer extremity of the reef--so far as we could trace it--now bore barely a point on our lee bow; and every sea that met us seemed to be sending us a good two fathoms to leeward. The hoarse voice of the seaman forward who was calling the watch reached me brokenly through the deep bellowing of the gale and the loud seething of the boiling sea; and presently I could see, by the increased bulk of the group of crouching figures under the lee of the deck-house, that everybody was now out of the forecastle. The saloon party were scarcely less expeditious; for in a few minutes they, too, appeared on deck, wrapped in rugs and blankets snatched hastily from the beds upon which they had been sleeping; and I at once disposed them as comfortably as I could on the deck, under the lee of the companion and skylight, where they would be in a measure sheltered from the flying spray. Then, calling Mr Forbes, I bade him take two hands below to collect and bring on deck all the life-belts we could muster, and serve one out to each man. This was soon done; the life-buoys were cut loose and piled in a safe and convenient position on the poop; and we were ready for any emergency. Nor were we any too soon; for we were now close upon the reef, while we had settled so far to leeward that it had become apparent to everybody that nothing short of a miracle could save us. It was a bitter thought to me that, having brought the ship so far on her voyage, safely and prosperously, I was now about to lose her through what appeared to be nothing less than a cruel and malicious stroke of fortune. For if the gale had broken upon us during the hours of daylight, instead of in the darkness of night, we should undoubtedly have discovered the hazard of our position in time to have avoided running, as we had, blindly into this horrible death-trap. And not only should I lose the ship--a loss, it is true, that was to a great extent covered by insurance--but every scrap of property that any of us possessed on board her would also undoubtedly become the prey of the devouring sea--for there was no hope of saving anything out of the ship if she once touched that reef--and, worst of all, there was only too great a probability that many precious lives would be lost; it seemed, indeed, very questionable whether _any_ of us could hope to escape the fury of that raging surf.