"I say, friend Bungo, how shall we manage? You don't mean to swamp us in a
shove through that surf, do you?" said Mr Treenail.

"No fear, massa, if you and toder leetle man--of--war buccra, only keep dem
seat when we rise on de crest of de swell dere."

We sat quiet enough. Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped him as well
as I could. The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, of the sea, was trying
enough as we approached, buoyed on the last long undulation.

"Now sit still, massa, bote."

We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove forwards with a
smooth sliding motion up on the beach--until grit, grit, we stranded on the
cream--coloured sand, high and dry.

"Now jomp, massa, jomp."

We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down on our noses; the
sea receded, and before the next billow approached, we had run the canoe
twenty yards beyond high water mark.

It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe across the
sandbank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the harbour
of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we landed at the
bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin windows of the
merchantmen glimmering as e passed, and the town only discernible from a
solitary sparkle here and there. But the contrast when we landed was very
striking. We had come through the darkness of the night in comparative