linging to the cross-trees, with the winter seas smoking over the
slanted deck beneath him and the whole wrenched fabric of the ship
quaking at every sloshing blow, Black Dennis Nolan pressed the mouth of
the flask to the girl's colorless lips. A lurch of the hull sent the
brandy streaming over her face; but in a second and better-timed attempt
he succeeded in forcing a little of it between her teeth. He pulled the
glove from her left hand--a glove of brown leather lined with gray fur
and sodden with water--and rubbed the icy palm and wrist with the
liquor. There were several rings on the fingers; but he scarcely noticed
them. He thought of nothing but the girl herself. Never before had he
seen or dreamed of such a face as hers, and a breathless desire
possessed him to see her eyes unveiled. He worked feverishly, heedless
of the yeasting seas beneath, of the wind that worried at him as if it
would tear him from his leaping perch, of the wealth of cargo under the
reeking deck and the men of Chance Along on the edge of the cliff. He
returned the glove to the left hand with fumbling fingers, stripped the
other hand and rubbed it with brandy. After finishing with this and
regloving it he glanced again at the girl's face. The wet lashes
stirred, the pale lids fluttered and blinked wide and two wonderful eyes
gazed up at him. The eyes were clear yet with cross-lights at their
depths, like the water of a still pool floored with sand and touched
with the first level gleams of sunrise. They were sea-eyes--sea-gray,
sea-blue, with a hint even of sea-green. Never before had the master of
Chance Along seen or dreamed of such eyes.

The skipper was strangely and deeply stirred by the clear, inquiring
regard of those eyes; but, despite his dreams and ambitions, he was an
eminently practical young man. He extended the flask and held it to her
lips with a trembling hand.

"Ye must swallow some more o' this," he said, "'Twill take the chill out
o' ye."

The girl opened her lips obediently and swallowed a little of the
spirits; but her crystal gaze did not waver from his face.

"Am I saved?" she asked, quietly.

"Aye, ye bes saved," answered the skipper, more than ever confused by
the astonishing clearness and music of her voice and the fearless
simplicity of her question. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the
stump of the topmast with his right arm (for the spar whipped and sprang
to the impact of every sea upon the hull), and l