The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high and about ten feet wide.  Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing with ominous speed.  The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition.  The laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air, uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness against the wall of night.  The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and fro, were painfully distinct.

“Cotch suthin’!” shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller with the slack end of the dingy’s painter.  Delicate furrows for a moment cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her beam-ends.  The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away.  It cut and lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we could.  The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a harbor.  After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at hand.

“Put her up in de win’, or we’se gone, sho’!” shrieked young Rastus, who had crawled aft.

“Gone where?” cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now visible braced against the tiller.

Rastus’s white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred.

“How old is yo’, son?” asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the craft yawed heavily.

“I ain’t gwine to git any older, dat’s sho’,” replied the boy.

“W’y, yo’ poor coon,” retorted Sandy. “ef yu’se ole as Jehos’phat, I’se wu’ked disher reef fo’ yu’se bo’n.”

So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass of breakers pounding upon the outer reef.

“Yo’ ‘spec’ to jump dat reef?” asked Rastus, fairly shaking with fear.

“Start dat jib,” thundered the old man.  “Give her de bonnet an’ de ma’nsail up to dat fastest patch.”

The boys jumped to the halyards, and the boat sprang forward with renewed speed, careening over until she was half under, and slightly hauling on the wind.

“Ef I kin keep her offen de reef twill hit lightens up, we’se all right,” whispered Sandy; and suddenly, looking after the retreating cloud, out of which in the gloom now appeared the tops of the mangrove-trees, he shouted exultantly, “Give her de jib,” and, with a lunge at the tiller, the vessel fell away and dashed onward at the wall of rock and foam.