“For de Lawd’s sake, yo’ ain’t gwine to jump dat reef, is yo’?” cried Rastus, in an agony of terror.

But it was too late to question the old man’s intentions:  we were already in the back swash of the breakers.  “Cotch suthin!” he shouted again, as our craft on the crest of a mighty roller shot onward to seeming destruction.

On either side the bare coral rock was visible, as the waves gathered for another onward rush; yet we did not strike.  A second roller raised us high in air, and, hurled forward with the speed of the wind, we were buried in the seething foam; but the next moment our craft shook off the sea, and we glided away on the smooth waters of the inner reef.  A few minutes later the sun was out again, and one of the strangest phases of life on the reef had come and gone.

“I ‘spec’ dat was a narrer ’scape,” said old Sandy, “but I tuk de only chance.  We was boun’ to strike somewhere, an’ de squall jes’ got off in time for me to take bearin’s of disher five-foot channel; an’, it’s a fac’, I’se been fru a heap o’ times, but dat was de wustest, sho’ ’nuff.”

From Sandy’s orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very disreputable fishing-smack.  But he had been nearly all his life a “boy” on a government vessel, and now, having retired, from either habit or fancy he still kept up the man-of-war discipline, and when under more than ordinary excitement roared out a flood of orders that savored of both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a ranking officer on his own quarter-deck.  They were, however, well understood by Sandy’s sons, who constituted the port and starboard watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old man-of-war’s-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any missile that came handy.

“Dis ship’s on a war-footin’, dat’s sho’,” he said, after one of these characteristic scenes, and then, in a stage whisper, “so’s de crew.  Dey’s bofe cou’tin’ de same gal in Key Wes’.”

The Bull Pup, for such was her name, kept up her war-footing as long as we knew her, and the dignity invested in her hulk, which had a strong predisposition toward bilge, was, to say the least, extraordinary.  Never was better craft for the purpose; and during a long cruise among the small keys that form the extreme end of the Florida peninsula, she always showed a dogged determination, as indicated by her name, to surmount all difficulties.

We had sailed down during the night from Marquesas across the Rebecca shoals, and when caught by the squall were off Bush Key, one of the most easterly of the group, which enjoys the distinction of possessing Dry Tortugas,—­why “dry” we know not.  Our extraordinary entrance, almost instantaneous, from rough to comparatively smooth water can only be explained by a casual reference to the