"Knowing your lordship's anxiety, I decided to run in, so that we
could renew the search with the first glimmer of daylight," explained
the skipper. "We're now barely under headway. According to the smell,
we're as near those reefs as I care to venture in the dark."

"Right-o! We'll lose no time," approved the young earl. "D'you still
think to-day is apt to tell the tale, one way or the other?"

"Aye, your lordship. I may be mistaken; but, as I told you, reckoning
together all the probabilities, we should to-day cover the spot where
the _Impala_ must have been driven on the coral--that is, unless she
foundered in deep water."

"But, man, you said that was not probable."

"A new boat should be able to stand the racking of half a dozen
cyclones, m' lord, without straining a bottom plate. No; it's far more
probable she shook off her screw, or something went wrong with the
steering gear or in the engine room. I've recharted her probable
course and that of the cyclone. It was as well for us to begin our
search at the Zambezi, as I told your lordship. But if to-day we fail
to find where she piled her bones on the coral, it's odds we'll not
to-morrow. On beyond, at Port Mozambique, we got only the north rim of
the storm. I put in there for shelter when the barometer dropped."

"That was on your run south. Glad I had the luck to chance on a man
who knows the coast as you do," remarked Lord James. "Look at those
steamers Mr. Leslie chartered by cable--a good week the start of us,
and still beating the coverts down there along Sofala! Wasting time!