So, as I say, it fell to Mr.Riach to go aloft, and he sat there looking out and hailing the deck with news of all he saw.
"The sea to the south is thick," he cried; and then, after a while, "it does seem clearer in by the land." "Well, sir," said Hoseason to Alan, "we'll try your way of it.

But I think I might as well trust to a blind fiddler.

Pray God you're right." "Pray God I am!" says Alan to me.

"But where did I hear it?
Well, well, it will be as it must." As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs began to be sown here and there on our very path; and Mr.Riach sometimes cried down to us to change the course.

Sometimes, indeed, none too soon; for one reef was so close on the brig's weather board that when a sea burst upon it the lighter sprays fell upon her deck and wetted us like rain.
The brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day, which was, perhaps, the more alarming.