Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/61

Rh "Starboard, there, Chuma," Keith called to the Kanaka bo'sun. "Steady. We'll take a short cut through these rocks."

Joan, with Keith standing at her side, shuddered a trifle as the Kestrel ran full tilt through the nest of bristling snags. Jim, one of the Kanakas, was standing in the bow, sending back silent signals to Chuma. Twice the ketch was on the verge of having her bottom torn out when, in answer to a movement of Jim's arm, she veered like a swallow, out of impending danger. Keith would never have attempted to make the passage had he not considered it desperately necessary, and, as it was, he only just emerged at the seaward side of the reef in time to meet the Portuguese.

Luffing up into the wind, he lay there for sixty seconds, watching the schooner. Moniz ran on a little way, and then there was the splash of his anchor. Immediately afterwards several hands dropped over the side into the schooner's small boat. Keith reached for a megaphone.

"Hello, there! Moniz, ahoy!" he shouted.

"Hello," came back the voice of the Portuguese.

"You keep away from that reef, or you'll get hurt," Trent declared.

"Plenty of shells for all of us, eh?" Moniz said in a wheedling voice. "Let us both try our luck, Mr. Trent."

"I'll see you in hell first," Trent shouted back.