clad in a night-dress,
and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
wearing.

About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
the horizon.

In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
the bridge; she wanted a pilot.

The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.

Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
Sunday.

Chapter Ten

About ten o'clock Vandover we