“Skipper, send Bill up to help me with the boat.  That last’s drove her abreast the skylight.”

The one look-out man had saved himself.  How, only a smacksman can tell.  The skipper came down again.

“Now, gentlemen, shall I run or not?” “Well, skipper, if we get through this we shall be more needed than ever.”

“Yes, sir; but if that last sea hadn’t glanced a bit on our starboard bow, we shouldn’t have got through.  We’ve saved the boat, but she was snapped from the grips like a rotten tooth.”

“But, skipper, we may be pooped in running, or we may do some damage to the rudder and broach-to.  Then we should be worse off than here.”

“Very well, gentlemen.  I’m not concerned for myself.  My duty’s done now, and I’ll do my best.  I advise you to take some coffee, and try to get a few hours’ rest before the pinch comes.  You’ll not get much rest then.”

Another sea came, and another; the sound of the wind paralyzed thought and made speech impossible.  Had any one said, “The end of the world has come,” you would have felt only a mild surprise, for even the capacity for fear or apprehension was stunned as the brain is stunned by a blow.  “I can’t stand this any longer, Tom.  Even brandy wouldn’t do much good for more than an hour.  Do you hear me?”

Tom nodded in a dazed way.

“Well, then, let’s go into the open somehow.  Perhaps the skipper’s strong, hot coffee will wake us.  Anyhow, let us try a cup.”

Oh! that indescribable night!  To know that death was feasting in that blackness; to feel that vigilance was of no avail; to turn away convulsed from the iron push of the demoniac force which for the time seemed to have taken the place of an atmosphere.  Smash!  Rattle.  Then a wild whistling; a many lashes, that flapped and cracked; then the fall of the spar, and the deep, quick sigh from Lennard as it whizzed close by him.  The gaff of the mizen had broken away, halliards and all, as if a supernatural knife had been drawn across by a strong hand.  The men were hanging on, while a bellying, uncontrollable canvas buffeted them as if it had volition and sense, and strove to knock their senses out of them.  A canvas adrift is like an unruly beast.  All hands came through the after-cabin, and attacked the thundering sail.

“For your lives now, chaps, before another sea comes!  I can’t slack away these halliards.  Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; cut them away.”

The gaff had fallen, but it was not clear yet.  In some mysterious fashion the mizen halliards had yielded and slipped for some distance after a sudden shock had cut the gaff halliards and let the jaws of the gaff free; so now the sail would neither haul up nor come down.  Like a cat Bob sprang up the remaining rings, and hacked at the gear; the sail fell—­and so did Bob, with a dull thud.

“Oh! skipper, that’s a bad ’un.”

“Cast a line round him till we’ve stowed.  Jim, take hold of her; she’s falling off!  Shove her to the wind again till we’re done!  Now, lads, all of you on to the sheet!  Haul! oh, haul!  Slack away them toppin’ lifts.  So; now we’ve got her!  Where’s Bob?”