Crazy Jane shook her head slowly.

“Nothing but to tell his family, if we ever get back to land,” was her solemn reply.  “But, darlin’, we aren’t on land ourselves yet, and I doubt me very much if we ever shall be.  See the waves breaking over this old tub.  How long do you think she will stand it?”

Harriet did not answer at once.  She was peering forward into the darkness.  Holding up her hand, she noted the direction of the wind.

“Do you see, Jane, the ‘Sue’ is behaving better!  She isn’t taking nearly so much water.  Do you know what has happened?”

“What is it, darlin’?”

“The wreckage that you cut away is holding the stern and acting as a sea anchor, and it has pulled the bow of the boat around until we are headed right into the gale.  I am glad I didn’t let you cut loose the wreckage.  It may be the very thing that will save us, but I don’t know.  I wish you would get some one to help you bail out the pit.  The water is getting deep in here again, and the cabin is all afloat.”

“But more will come in,” objected Jane.

“And more will swamp us, first thing we know.  You take the wheel.  I will bail.”

“I’ll do it myself, darlin’.”

Jane asked Hazel to assist her, and together they slaved until it seemed as if their backs surely would break.

The storm, while not abating any, did not appear to increase in fury.  It was severe enough as it was.  The seas loomed above the broken craft like huge, black mountains, yet somehow they seemed to break just a few seconds before engulfing her and to divide, passing on either side, but the “Sister Sue” wallowed in a smother of foam, creaking and groaning, giving in every joint, and threatening to fall to pieces with each new twist and turn forced upon her by the writhing seas.

Miss Elting, after having in a measure quieted the girls in the cabin, came out clinging to a rope.  She and Harriet held a shouted conversation, after which the guardian returned to the cabin, where there was less danger of being beaten down by huge seas, although one could get fully as wet inside the cabin as on deck.

The hours of the night wore slowly away.  The intense impenetrable blackness, the roar and thunder of the sea, the terrible jerking, jolting and hurling beneath them, shook the nerves of the girls, keeping them constantly in a half-dazed condition that perhaps lessened the keenness of their suffering.  Harriet and Jane, however, never for a single second relaxed their vigilance, or left a single thing undone that would tend to ease the boat or to contribute to its safety.  The binnacle light long since had been extinguished by the water, making it impossible to see the compass to tell which way they were headed.  Little good it would have done them to know, either, they being powerless to change their course, or to make any headway at all, save as they drifted with the seas.  Harriet hoped they might be drifting toward shore.  Instead, they were being slowly carried down the coast and parallel with it.