le of wind and snow.

"Aft, here, one o' you!"

When Billy Topsail took the wheel, the skipper plunged into the
forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment,
singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the
forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken
loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red coals in every
part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner
was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The
forecastle was all ablaze. In five minutes it would be a furnace.

"We're lost!" Jimmie Grimm cried, staring at the frothy waves running
past.

"Not yet," Archie grimly replied.

They were all of heart and strength and ingenuity; and they worked
with all their might. But the buckets of water, and the great seas,
which Skipper Bill, in desperation, deliberately shipped, made little
impression. It was soon evident that the little _First Venture_ was
doomed. Meantime, the skipper had brought her before the wind, and she
was now flying towards the inhospitable Chunks. The skipper was less
concerned for his schooner than for the lives of his crew. The ship
was already lost; the crew--well, how _could_ the crew survive the
rocks and gigantic breakers of the Chunks?

It was the only hope. No small boat could for a moment live in the sea
that was running. The schooner must be beached on the Chunks. There
was no other refuge. But how beach her? It was a dark night, with the
snow flying thick. Was it possible to sight a black, low-lying rock?
There was nothing for it but to drive with the wind in the hope of
striking. There were many islands; she might strike one. But would it
really be an island, whereon a man might crawl out of reach of the
sea? or would it be a rock swept by the breakers? Chance would
determine that. Skipper Bill was powerless.

But would she make the Chunks before she was ablaze from stem to
stern? Again, the skipper was powerless; he could do no more than give
her all the wind that blew.

So he ordered the reefs shaken out--and waited.

"Tom," said the skipper, presently, to the first hand, "was it you
stowed the cargo?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause. Archie Armstrong and Jimmie Grimm, aft near the
wheel, wondered why the skipper had put the question.

"An' where," the skipper asked, quietly, "did you put the powder?"

"For'ard, sir."

"How far for'ard?"

"Fair up against the forecas