and the martingale slued out of place; one of the anchors broke its fastenings and hammered at the side; the galley gave way and went slopping into the lee scuppers.  No food that morning except dry crackers and cold beef; all hands laboring exhaustingly to repair damages and make things taut.  For more than half an hour three men were out on the guys and backropes endeavoring to reset the martingale, deluged over and over by seas, and at last driven in beaten.  Others were relashing the galley, hauling the loose anchor and all the anchors up on the rail, and resetting the loose lee rigging, which threatened at every lurch to let the masts go by the board.

Thurstane presently learned that the wind had changed during the night, at first dropping away for a couple of hours, then reopening with fresh rage from the west, and finally hauling around into the northwest, whence it now came in a steady tempest.  The vessel too had altered her course; she was no longer beating in long tacks toward the southeast; she was heading westward and struggling to get away from the land.  Thurstane asked few questions; he was a soldier and had learned to meet fate in silence; he knew too that men weighted with responsibilities do not like to be catechised.  But he guessed from the frequent anxious looks of the captain eastward that the California coast was perilously near, and that the brig was more likely to be drifting toward it than making headway from it.  Surveying through his closed hands the stormy windward horizon, he gave up all thoughts of getting away from Clara by reaching San Diego, and turned toward the idea of saving her from shipwreck.

None of the other passengers came on deck this morning.  Garcia, horribly seasick and frightened, held on desperately to his berth, and passed the time in screaming for the “stewrt,” cursing his evil surroundings, calling everybody he could think of pigs, dogs, etc., and praying to saints and angels.  Coronado, not less sick and blasphemous, had more command over his fears, and kept his prayers for the last pinch.  Clara, a much better sailor, and indeed an uncommonly good one, was so far beaten by the motion that she did not get up, but lay as quiet as the brig would let her, patiently awaiting results, now and then smiling at Garcia’s shouts, but more frequently thinking of Thurstane, and sometimes praying that she might find him alive at Fort Yuma.

The steward carried cold beef, hard bread, brandy, coffee, and gruel (made in his pantry) from stateroom to stateroom.  The girl ate heartily, inquired about the storm, and asked, “When shall we get there?” Garcia and Coronado tried a little of the gruel and a good deal of the brandy and water, and found, as people usually do under such circumstances, that nothing did them any good.  The old man wanted to ask the steward a hundred questions, and yelled for his nephew to come and translate for him.  Coronado, lying on his back, made no answer to these cries of despair, except in muttered curses and sniffs of angry laughter.  So passed the morning in the cabin.