“Our friend, Don Casimer, seems to have a rather ugly twist in his temper to-night,” laughed the mate, as soon as the object of his remarks had disappeared.  “If a shark were to dine off him, it would not much matter, for he’s the sort of a fellow that hates himself and everybody else.  He’s in the Cuba trade, and thinks—­ Eh, by George, boy, look out, or you’ll be overboard!  That was a thumper, and no mistake!”

The tremendous wave that struck the ship, and jerked the word of caution from the mate’s lips, threw Phil violently against the nettings, deluging the deck and sending a shower of blinding salt spray as high as the smoke-stack.

Phil righted with the ship—­that is, he scrambled to his feet and shook the brine from his eyes, as soon as the gallant little steamer got her propeller again in the water, and had settled herself for another shock.

“I should say it was a thumper!” gasped Phil.  “It seemed to walk on board and grab at everything within its reach.  It’s got my hat, and would have got me, if I had not clung for dear life to the nettings.”

“It’s a way these heavy cross-seas have of introducing themselves, lashed by such a wind as is blowing now,” said Mr. Moore.  “I think you must have been cut out for a sailor, you take so kindly to the rough side of a sailor’s life.”

“Oh, I don’t know!” replied Phil, diffidently.  “I like the sea.  I haven’t seen much of it, but what I have seen has been pretty rough—­an experience that I’d not like to live over again.”

He thought of Lelia, and the time they were adrift together in the little pleasure-boat; of their awful landing in the cold, gray dawn of the early morning, on that strange, lonely coast; of their subsequent wanderings, hungry and weary in the swamp—­but this was so different!

He was on board a stout steamer, commanded by good, capable officers, and really had no fear as to the vessel’s safety, though it was blowing a hurricane, and the locality a particularly dangerous one.

While these reflections were passing through Phil’s mind, Captain Barrett, a coast-skipper of the old-time sort, approached them, his rubber storm-suit glistening in the weird light of the lantern he carried, his weather-beaten face wearing an anxious expression, and his brows closely knit in a searching look leeward.

“It’s so confounded dark, and the mist and drizzle so thick, one can’t see the ship’s bows; but we ought to make Largo Light soon, if I am not far out in my reckoning.  But you can’t tell, in these chop seas, where you are.  The wind drives you ahead and the current pulls you back, and the first thing you know you’re on the rocks, and the deuce and all to pay,” remarked the captain, his sharp, gray eyes still searching the rainy darkness.  “I estimate our speed at fourteen knots—­what say you, Mr. Moore?”

“Not so much.  Twelve knots, I think a fair calculation.”

“Then we must be not far from Devil’s Rock,” said the captain, thoughtfully.  “According to my reckoning, we should have passed it an hour ago; and the Devil’s Rock it will prove, indeed, if we are so unlucky as to strike it such a night as this.”