We were about a hundred and fifty miles off Niué, when the pirate came to me one windy morning, and asked me if I wanted to see something that had only been once seen before.
There was, of course, only one reply possible.
“Then keep a look-out, and you’ll see it,” said the pirate. “We’re going to run right by Beveridge Reef, and it’s been only once sighted. What’s more, it’s wrong charted, and I’m going to set it right. You’ve no idea what a lot of wrecks there have been on that d-------- that dangerous place. Not a soul ever got away from one of them to tell what happened, either. They’d only know when things began drifting down to Niué, weeks after--timber and cargo, and so on--why, a lot of the houses in Niué are built out of wreckage--and then people would say that there’d been another wreck on Beveridge Reef. Some fool reported it as a coral island two miles across, once upon a time, but I’ll bet he never saw it. If it had been, it wouldn’t have been as destructive as it is.”
Late in the day we sighted it. The pirate was aloft, swinging between heaven and earth, with a glass in his hand, calling out observations to the chief-officer-boatswain below. The crew were attending exclusively to the horizon, and letting the ship look after herself, according to the amiable way of Maories when there is anything interesting afoot. The weather was darkening down, and heavy squalls of rain swept the sea now and then. But there it was, clearly enough to be seen in the intervals of the squalls, a circle of white foam enclosing an inner patch of livid green, clearly marked off from the grey of the surrounding ocean. Here and there a small black tooth of rock projected from the deadly ring of surf, and--significant and cruel sight--two ships’ anchors were plainly to be seen through the glass, as we neared the reef, lying fixed among the rock, so low in the water as only to be visible at intervals.
“A wicked place,” said the captain, who had come down from his eyrie, and was giving orders for the preparation of a boat. “Couldn’t see a bit of it at night--couldn’t see it in broad daylight, if there was a big sea on. And wrong charted too. Think of the last minutes of those poor chaps the anchors belonged to!”