We're dragging, too!"

Grief sprang to the wheel and put it hard over, veering the _Mahhini_
to port. The third anchor took hold, and the _Roberta_ went by,
stern-first, a dozen yards away. They waved their hands to Peter Gee
and Captain Robinson, who, with a number of sailors, were at work on the
bow.

"He's knocking out the shackles!" Grief shouted. "Going to chance the
passage! Got to! Anchors skating!"

"We're holding now!" came the answering shout. "There goes the _Cactus_
down on the _Misi_. That settles them!"

The _Misi_ had been holding, but the added windage of the _Cactus_
was too much, and the entangled schooners slid away across the boiling
white. Their men could be seen chopping and fighting to get them apart.
The _Roberta_, cleared of her anchors, with a patch of tarpaulin set
for'ard, was heading for the passage at the northwestern end of the
lagoon. They saw her make it and drive out to sea. But the _Misi_ and
_Cactus_, unable to get clear of each other, went ashore on the atoll
half a mile from the passage. The wind merely increased on itself and
continued to increase. To face the full blast of it required all one's
strength, and several minutes of crawling on deck against it tired a man
to exhaustion. Hermann, with his Kanakas, plodded steadily, lashing and
making secure, putting ever more gaskets on the sails. The wind ripped
and tore their thin undershirts from their backs. They moved slowly, as
if their bodies weighed tons, never releasing a hand-hold until another
had been secured. Loose ends of rope stood out stiffly horizontal, and,
when a whipping gave, the loose end frazzled and blew away.

Mulhall touched one and then another and pointed to the shore. The
grass-sheds had disappeared, and Parlay's house rocked drunkenly,
Because the wind blew lengthwise along the atoll, the house had been
sheltered by the miles of cocoanut trees. But the big seas, breaking
across from outside, were undermining it and hammering it to pieces.
Already tilted down the slope of sand, its end was imminent. Here and
there in the cocoanut trees people had lashed themselves. The trees did
not sway or thresh about. Bent over rigidly from the wind, they remained
in that position and vibrated monstrously. Underneath, across the sand,
surged the white spume of the breakers. A big sea was likewise making
down the length of the lagoon. It had plenty of room to kick up in
the ten-mile stretch from the windward rim of the