It happened in this way. The
_Spray_ had just passed M Reef light-ship, and left the light dipping
astern, when, going at full speed, with sheets off, she hit the M Reef
itself on the north end, where I expected to see a beacon.
She swung off quickly on her heel, however, and with one more bound on
a swell cut across the shoal point so quickly that I hardly knew how
it was done. The beacon wasn't there; at least, I didn't see it. I
hadn't time to look for it after she struck, and certainly it didn't
much matter then whether I saw it or not.
But this gave her a fine departure for Cape Greenville, the next point
ahead. I saw the ugly boulders under the sloop's keel as she flashed
over them, and I made a mental note of it that the letter M, for which
the reef was named, was the thirteenth one in our alphabet, and that
thirteen, as noted years before, was still my lucky number. The
natives of Cape Greenville are notoriously bad, and I was advised to
give them the go-by. Accordingly, from M Reef I steered outside of the
adjacent islands, to be on the safe side. Skipping along now, the
_Spray_ passed Home Island, off the pitch of the cape, soon after
midnight, and squared away on a westerly course. A short time later
she fell in with a steamer bound south, groping her way in the dark
and making the night dismal with her own black smoke.
From Home Island I made for Sunday Island, and bringing that abeam,
shortened sail, not wishing to make Bird Island, farther along, before
daylight, the wind being still fresh and the islands being low, with
dangers about them.
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