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 These hurricanes would lash up the water until it filled the air with flying spume, like yeast. It would be so thick that one could catch handfuls of it. Under such conditions the captain could only depend on his compass and allow the best he could for the wind and the strong undercurrents.

It was just the sort of weather to invite disaster, so it was no wonder that, one evening, when the captain had estimated that they were not far off the Colombian coast, that the ship on which Freckles and Dapples sailed, struck a reef and stuck fast. Then, as though in utter disdain of the powers of man, the clouds rolled away and the setting sun appeared, showing a low coast line about a mile away.

But if the clouds disappeared and the sun appeared, the winds did not abate. Instead, they piled up great billows that rolled constantly against the helpless ship, and ground the sharp-toothed reef deeper and deeper into her side.