ly, while the words were yet in his mouth, the sun was wiped
from the sky like writing from a slate, the horizon blackened, vanished,
a long white line of froth whipped across the sea and came on hissing. A
hollow note boomed out, boomed, swelled, and grew rapidly to a roar.

An icy chill stabbed the air. Then the squall swooped and struck, and
the sky shut down over the troubled ocean like a pot-lid over a boiling
pot. The schooner's fore and main sheets, that had not been made fast,
unrove at the first gust and began to slat wildly in the wind. The
Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping at cleats, stays, and masts.
They were helpless--paralyzed with fear. Charlie clung to a stay, one
arm over his head, as though dodging a blow. Wilbur gripped the rail
with his hands where he stood, his teeth set, his eyes wide, waiting
for the foundering of the schooner, his only thought being that the end
could not be far. He had heard of the suddenness of tropical squalls,
but this had come with the abruptness of a scene-shift at a play. The
schooner veered broad-on to the waves. It was the beginning of the
end--another roll to the leeward like the last and the Pacific would
come aboard.

"And you call yourselves sailor men! Are you going to drown like rats
on a plank?" A voice that Wilbur did not know went ringing through that
horrid shouting of wind and sea like the call of a bugle. He turned
to see Moran, the girl of the "Lady Letty," standing erect upon the
quarterdeck, holding down the schooner's wheel. The confusion of that
dreadful moment, that had paralyzed the crew's senses, had brought back
hers. She was herself again, savage, splendid, dominant, superb, in her
wrath at their weakness, their cowardice.

Her heavy brows were knotted over her flaming eyes, her hat was gone,
and her thick bands of yellow hair whipped across her face and streamed
out in the wind like streamers of the northern lights. As she shouted,
gesturing furiously to the men, the loose sleeve of the oilskin coat
fell back, and showed her forearm, strong, round, and white as scud,
the hand and wrist so tanned as to look almost like a glove. And all the
while she shouted aloud, furious with indignation, raging against the
supineness of the "Bertha's" crew.

"Stand by, men! stand by! Look alive, now! Make fast the stays'l
halyards to the dory's warp! Now, then, unreeve y'r halyards! all clear
there! pass the end for'd outside the rigging! outside! you fo