“Cut away!” screamed Harriet.  “Jane, are you there?  Tommy!”

“He’s gone!” It was Jane’s voice that answered in a long, wailing cry.

The water was rapidly receding from the cabin.  Miss Elting quickly straightened the girls out.  She did not know how seriously they had been hurt, if at all, but after making sure that all within the cabin were alive, the guardian groped her way to the cockpit.  Harriet stood braced against the wheel, shouting out her commands, screaming at the top of her voice to make herself heard and understood above the gale.

The guardian staggered over to her.

“Oh, what has happened?” she cried.

“The mast has gone overboard—­part of it at least, and—­”

“Captain Billy’s gone, too!  The boom struck and carried him over!” yelled Jane when she had crept near enough to be heard.

“Cut away, I tell you.  Here is a hatchet.”  Harriet had groped in the locker, from which she drew a keen-edged hatchet and handed it to Crazy Jane McCarthy.  “You’ll have to be quick.  We’re being swamped.  See, we are taking water over the side.  Oh, do hurry, Jane!”

“The captain gone!” moaned Miss Elting.  “Can nothing be done?”

“No.”  Harriet’s voice was firm.  “Unless we work fast we shall all go to the bottom.  We must save those on the boat, Miss Elting.  But you listen for his voice.  Oh, this is terrible!”

The steady whack—­whack of the hatchet in the hands of Jane McCarthy came faintly to their ears.  Once Jane slipped over the side into the water; but, grasping the life-line to which she was tied, the girl pulled herself back on the deck and set pluckily to work again.  It was the wonder of Harriet Burrell that the “Sue” kept afloat at all, for she was more under water than above it, and the seas were breaking over her.

“Please get back and look after the girls.  Where is your life-line?” asked Harriet of Miss Elting.

“I threw it off when I went into the cabin.”

“Get back!  Stay there until I call you, or—­”

Harriet did not finish the sentence, but the guardian understood and turned back into the cabin, where she did her best to comfort the panic-stricken Camp Girls.

“Whoop!” shrieked Jane.

The “Sue” righted with a violent jolt.  Jane had freed the side of the boat of the rigging which, attached to the broken mast and sail, was holding the craft down and threatening every second to swamp her.  Jane crept down into the cockpit, and was about to cut away the stays that held the wreckage, which was now floating astern of the sloop.

“Stop!” commanded Harriet.  “Wait till we see what effect it has on us, but stand by to cut away if we see there is peril.  Oh, I hope we shall be able to ride it out.  That poor captain!  He must have been stunned by a blow of the boom.  It seems cruel to stand here without lifting a hand to save him.  But what can we do?  Jane, is there anything you can think of that we can do?”