“Frightened?” queried Quarrington when he had made fast the mainsheet.

Magda smiled straight into his eyes.

“No.  We almost capsized then, didn’t we?”

“It was a near shave,” he answered bluntly.

They did not speak much after that.  They had enough to do to catch the wind which seemed to bluster from all quarters at once, coming in violent, gusty spurts that shook the frail little vessel from stem to stern.  Time after time the waves broke over her bows, flooding the deck and drenching them both with stinging spray.

Magda sat very still, maintaining her grip of the wet and slippery tiller with all the strength of her small, determined hands.  Her limbs ached with cold.  The piercing wind and rain seemed to penetrate through her thin summer clothing to her very skin.  But unwaveringly she responded to Michael’s orders as they reached her through the bellowing of the gale.  Her eyes were like stars and her lips closed in a scarlet line of courage.

“Port your helm! Hard! . . .  Hold on!”

Then the thudding swing of the boom as the Bella Donna slewed round on a fresh tack.

The hurly-burly of the storm was bewildering.  In the last hour or so the entire aspect of things had altered, and Magda was conscious of a freakish sense of the unreality of it all.  With the ridiculous inconsequence of thought that so often accompanies moments of acute anxiety she reflected that Noah probably experienced a somewhat similar astonishment when he woke up one morning to find that the Flood had actually begun.

It seemed as though the storm had reached out long arms and drawn the whole world of land and sea and sky into its turbulent embrace.  Driving sheets of rain blurred the coastline on either hand, while the wind caught up the grey waters into tossing, crested billows and flung them down again in a smother of angry spume.

Overhead, it screamed through the rigging of the little craft like a tormented devil, tearing at the straining canvas with devouring fingers while the slender mast groaned beneath its force.

Suddenly a terrific gust of wind seemed to strike the boat like an actual blow.  Magda saw Michael leap aside, and in the same instant came a splitting, shattering report as the mast snapped in half and a tangled mass of wood and cordage and canvas fell crash on to the deck where he had been standing.

Magda uttered a cry and sprang to her feet.  For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating as she visioned him beneath the mass of tackle.  Or had he been swept off his feet—­overboard into the welter of grey, surging waters that clamoured round the boat?

The moment of uncertainty seemed endless, immeasurable.  Then Michael appeared, stepping across the wreckage, and came towards her.  The relief was almost unendurable.  She stretched out shaking hands.

“Oh, Michael! . . .  Michael!” she cried sobbingly.