deck and sounds above, suggested that the schooner had been
struck down by a sudden gale. He had grown more or less accustomed to
such occurrences and to sleeping fully dressed, and in another moment or
two he was out of the deck-house. A sharp wind drove stinging flakes of
snow into his face. It was very dark, but he guessed that the schooner's
rail was in the sea, which was washing the decks, and that some of the
crew were struggling to get the mainsail off her. A man whom he supposed
to be Charly ran into him.

"Better come for'ard. Got to haul outer jib down before it blows away!"
he shouted.

Up to his knees in water, Wyllard staggered after him and made out by
the mad banging that some one had already cast the peak of the
boom-foresail loose. He reached the windlass, and clutched it, as a sea
that took him to the waist frothed in over the weather rail. The bows
lurched out of it viciously, hurling another icy flood back on him, and
he could see a dim white chaos of frothing water about and beneath them.
Above rose the black wedge of the jibs.

He did not want to get out along the bowsprit to stop one of them down,
but there are many things flesh and blood shrink from which must be
faced at sea. He made out that a Siwash was fumbling at the down-haul
made fast near his side, and when the man's shadowy figure rose up
against the whiteness of the foam he made a jump forward. Then he was on
the bowsprit, lying upon it while he felt for the foot-rope slung
beneath. He found it, and was cautiously lowering himself when the man
in front of him called out harshly, and he saw a white sea range up
ahead. It broke short over with a rush and roar, and he clung with hands
and feet for his life as the schooner's dipping bows rammed the seething
mass.

The vessel went into it to the windlass. Wyllard was smothered in an icy
flood that seemed bent on wrenching him from his hold, but that was only
for a moment or two, and then, streaming with water, he was swung high
above the sea again. It was bad enough merely to hold on, but that was a
very small share of his task, for the big black sail that cut the higher
darkness came rattling down its stay and fell upon him and his
companion. As it dropped the wind took hold of the folds of it and
buffeted them cruelly. As he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him
incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the
reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas mus