Now, Mr. Jacob, the first officer, had come up to the bridge while I was searching the shore for an anchorage, and he, who always was a prudent man, spoke up at once for laying to and leaving our business, whatever it was, until the morning. "You'll lose the light in ten minutes, and yon's a port I do not like the look of," said he. "Better go about, sir. Reefs don't get out of the way, even for a lady." "Mister Jacob," said I, for, little man that he was, he had a big wit in his own way, "the lady would be very glad to get out of the way of the reef, I'm thinking. However, that's for the morning. Here's Peter Bligh as pleased as any school-boy at the sight of land. Tell him that he isn't going ashore to-night, and he'll thank you nicely. Eh, Peter, are you, too, of Jacob's mind? Is it sea or shore, a glass in my cabin or what the natives will sell you in the log-cabins over yonder?" Peter Bligh shut up his glass with a snap. "I know the liquor, Mr. Begg," said he; "as the night is good to me, I'm of Mister Jacob's way of thinking. A sound bed and a clear head, and a fair wind for the morning--you'll see little of any woman, black or white, on yonder rock to-night." Jacob--his little eyes twinkling, as they always did at his own jokes--muttered the old proverb about choosing a wife by candle-light; but before any one could hear him a beacon shone out across the sea from some reef behind the main island I had noticed, and all eyes were turned anxiously to that. It was a queer place, truly, to set up a light, and I don't wonder that the men remarked it. "An odd kind of a lantern to help poor mariners," said Mister Jacob, sagely. "Being kind to it, sir, I should say that it's not more than a mile too much to the northward." "Lay your course by that, and a miracle won't carry you by the reef," added Peter Bligh, sagaciously; "in my country, which is partly Ireland, sir, we put up notice-boards for the boys that ride bicycles: 'This Hill is Dangerous.' Faith, in ould Oireland, they put 'em up at the bottom of the hills, which is useful entirely." Some of the crew, grouped about the ladder's foot, laughed at this; others began to mutter among themselves as though the beacon troubled them, and they did not like it. A seaman's the most superstitious creature that walks the earth or sails on the sea, as all the world knows. I could see the curiosity, which had followed my men from Southampton, was coming to a head here about twelve thousand miles from home.