ner lurched along,
tossing her head, digging her nose into the frothy waves. A cask on
the after deck broke its lashings, pursued a mad and devastating
career fore and aft, and at last went spinning into the sea. Skipper
Bill devoutly hoped that nothing else would get loose above or below.
He cast an apprehensive glance into the darkening cloud of snow ahead.
There was no promise to be descried. And to leeward the first islands
of the Chunks, which had been sighted an hour ago, had disappeared in
the night.

"Lively with that mains'l, lads!" Skipper Bill shouted, lifting his
voice above the wind. "We'll reef the fores'l!"

The crew had been intent upon the task in hand. Not a man had yet
smelled smoke. And they continued to wrestle with the obstinate sail,
each wishing, heartily enough, to get the dirty-weather job well done,
and to return to the comfort of the forecastle. It was the cook who
first paused to sniff--to sniff again--and to fancy he smelled smoke.
But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and he
forgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce the
disordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and the
mainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentous
intervals, during which the fate of the _First Venture_ was
determined.

"All stowed, sir!" Archie Armstrong shouted to the skipper.

"Get at that fores'l, then!" was the order.

With the customary, "Ay, ay, sir!" shouted cheerily, in the manner of
good men and willing lads, the crew ran forward.

Skipper Bill remembers that the cook tripped and went sprawling into
the lee scupper; and that he scrambled out of the water with a
laugh.

It was the last laugh aboard the _First Venture_; for the condition of
the schooner was then instantly discovered.

"Fire!" screamed Billy Topsail.

The _First Venture_ was all ablaze forward.

CHAPTER XI

_In Which the "First Venture" All Ablaze Forward, Is
Headed For the Rocks and Breakers of the Chunks, While
Bill o' Burnt Bay and His Crew Wait for the Explosion of
the Powder in Her Hold. In Which, Also, a Rope Is Put to
Good Use_

"Fire!"

A cloud of smoke broke from the forecastle and was swept off by the
wind. A tongue of red flame flashed upward and expired. Skipper Bill
did not need the cries of terror and warning to inform him. The _First
Venture_ was afire! And she was not only afire; she was off the Chunks
in a ga