from the lookout. She was afloat and
drifting broadside on to the coast. Her masts were still standing and
she seemed able to take care of herself. Polhemus was right. Nothing
could be done till she grounded. In the meantime the crew must keep
abreast of her. Her fate, however, was but a question of time, for not
only had the wind veered to the southward--a-dead-on-shore wind--but
the set of the flood must eventually strand her.

At the track-lines again, every man in his place, Uncle Isaac with his
shoulder under the spokes of the wheels, the struggling crew keeping
the cart close to the edge of the dune, springing out of the way of the
boiling surf or sinking up to their waists into crevices of sluiceways
gullied out by the hungry sea. Once Archie lost his footing and would
have been sucked under by a comber had not Captain Holt grapped him by
the collar and landed him on his feet again. Now and then a roller more
vicious than the others would hurl a log of wood straight at the cart
with the velocity of a torpedo, and swoop back again, the log missing
its mark by a length.

When the dawn broke the schooner could be made out more clearly. Both
masts were still standing, their larger sails blown away. The bowsprit
was broken short off close to her chains. About this dragged the
remnants of a jib sail over which the sea soused and whitened. She was
drifting slowly and was now but a few hundred yards from the beach,
holding, doubtless, by her anchors. Over her deck the sea made a clean
breach.

Suddenly, and while the men still tugged at the track-ropes, keeping
abreast of her so as to be ready with the mortar and shot-line, the
ill-fated vessel swung bow on toward the beach, rose on a huge mountain
of water, and threw herself headlong. When the smother cleared her
foremast was overboard and her deck-house smashed. Around her hull the
waves gnashed and fought like white wolves, leaping high, flinging
themselves upon her. In the recoil Captain Holt's quick eye got a
glimpse of the crew; two were lashed to the rigging and one held the
tiller--a short, thickset man, wearing what appeared to be a slouch hat
tied over his ears by a white handkerchief.

With the grounding of the vessel a cheer went up from around the cart.

"Now for the mortar!"

"Up with it on the dune, men!" shouted the captain, his voice ringing
above the roar of the tempest.

The cart was forced up the slope--two men at the wheels, the others
stra