Now he was only exceedingly anxious to see the yacht again, and it was with a feeling of very real satisfaction that he saw all plain sail being made on the brig.  Through the remaining hours of the night he sat grasping the tiller and keeping his eyes on the shadowy and high pyramid of canvas gliding steadily ahead of his boat with a slight balancing movement from side to side.

IV

It was noon before the brig, piloted by Lingard through the deep channels between the outer coral reefs, rounded within pistol-shot a low hummock of sand which marked the end of a long stretch of stony ledges that, being mostly awash, showed a black head only, here and there amongst the hissing brown froth of the yellow sea.  As the brig drew clear of the sandy patch there appeared, dead to windward and beyond a maze of broken water, sandspits, and clusters of rocks, the black hull of the yacht heeling over, high and motionless upon the great expanse of glittering shallows.  Her long, naked spars were inclined slightly as if she had been sailing with a good breeze.  There was to the lookers-on aboard the brig something sad and disappointing in the yacht’s aspect as she lay perfectly still in an attitude that in a seaman’s mind is associated with the idea of rapid motion.

“Here she is!” said Shaw, who, clad in a spotless white suit, came just then from forward where he had been busy with the anchors.  “She is well on, sir—­isn’t she?  Looks like a mudflat to me from here.”

“Yes.  It is a mudflat,” said Lingard, slowly, raising the long glass to his eye.  “Haul the mainsail up, Mr. Shaw,” he went on while he took a steady look at the yacht.  “We will have to work in short tacks here.”

He put the glass down and moved away from the rail.  For the next hour he handled his little vessel in the intricate and narrow channel with careless certitude, as if every stone, every grain of sand upon the treacherous bottom had been plainly disclosed to his sight.  He handled her in the fitful and unsteady breeze with a matter-of-fact audacity that made Shaw, forward at his station, gasp in sheer alarm.  When heading toward the inshore shoals the brig was never put round till the quick, loud cries of the leadsmen announced that there were no more than three feet of water under her keel; and when standing toward the steep inner edge of the long reef, where the lead was of no use, the helm would be put down only when the cutwater touched the faint line of the bordering foam.  Lingard’s love for his brig was a man’s love, and was so great that it could never be appeased unless he called on her to put forth all her qualities and her power, to repay his exacting affection by a faithfulness tried to the very utmost limit of endurance.  Every flutter of the sails flew down from aloft along the taut leeches, to enter his heart in a sense of acute delight; and the gentle murmur of water alongside,