Dan was seated on the deck, his eyes peering about on all sides, trying to pierce the veil, every nerve taut, every sense alert.  The girl crept close beside him, so that she touched him, and there she remained, while all the terrors of the ghostly ship arose to confront her.  The weed-hung, slimy rails and wave-bitten deck stretched away in ever-fading perspective to the foremast where everything ended in an amorphous blur.

There came a time when the two felt almost a part of the deep—­two mortals admitted into all the hidden evils that lurk thereon.  Their lot to witness the inception of mighty tempests; to hear great gray waves boast of the harm they had done and the winds to plan their rending deeds.  Perhaps they themselves would be called to the work, to deal to some proud vessel the death blow as so many derelicts have done.

Once far off there sounded a series of whistle blasts, hoarse, tremulous notes of warning and inquiry.  But as the two listened with straining ears the sounds became more dim.  Finally they ceased altogether.

The girl eventually lost all sense of acute feeling.  She sat dumb, her undeviating eyes fastened upon Dan’s face, as though in him she found all that was tangible or normal or real.  Her hand was resting on his shoulder now, clutching it tight; but if he knew it was there, he made no sign.

At length, toward evening, as though in a dream, Dan’s voice bore upon her ears.  For a moment she gazed at him dully, and then she comprehended his words.

“It is beginning to rain, Virginia.  The fog will go away now.”

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed.

“The wind is freshening, too,” he added, “and it doesn’t feel very good.  I think we’re going to have a blow for a change.”

It seemed so.  Already the mists were beginning to scuttle away before the increasing wind-rush which moaned with evil breath.

“Will you hold the wheel for a moment, please,” said Dan.

As she placed her hands on the spokes he went forward and lowered the sail.  There were two lines of reef points in the section of canvas and Dan took in both.  When he hoisted it again there was just a patch of three-cornered sail.

Within half an hour it was raining hard.  The wind was increasing slowly but surely, and the sea was rising.  Dan asked the girl to go into the cabin and to remain there either until the storm was over, or he summoned her.  She obeyed him partially.  She went into the cabin, but returned quickly with two slickers.

“Do you suppose,” she cried, “I am going to let you be alone now?  I am going to help you, and, if it must be, to die with you.  I am not a bit afraid any more.”

Dan placed his hand on her arm.

“Get down here, then, under the lee of this cabin.  We are not going to die.  At least not yet a while.”

So the storm came.  With his patch of sail Dan had headed the craft up into the wind; and thus, with the boat already beginning to rise and fall, with the broad bow groaning, and oozing ends of planking, and dirty water, and the deck, contracting and expanding like the belly of a stricken whale, he settled down to the long fight.