ay, and they had the
tackle torn through their hands. The mast snapped six feet above the
deck, smashing the gunwales as it fell forward and overboard, but
hurting none of us.

Then a following sea or two broke over the stern, and I was washed from
the poop, for I had been at the sheet, down to the deck, and there saved
myself among the fallen rigging, half drowned. One of the men was washed
overboard at the same time, but a bight of the rigging that was over the
side caught him under the chin, and his mates hauled him on board again
by the head, as it were. He was wont to make a jest of it afterward,
saying that he was not likely to be hanged twice, but he had a wry neck
from that day forward.

No more seas came over us, for the wreck over the bows brought us head
to wind, though we shipped a lot of water across the decks as she rolled
in the sea. Then we rode to the drag of the fallen sail for a time, and
it seemed quiet now that there was no noise of wind screaming in rigging
above us. But all the while the thunder of the breakers grew nearer and
plainer.

I bided where I was, for the breath was knocked out of me for the
moment. I saw my father lash the helm, and then he and the rest got the
two axes that hung by the cabin door, and came forward with them. The
mast was pounding our side in a way that would start the planking before
long, and it must be cut adrift, and by that time I could join him.

When that was done, and it did not take long, we cleared the anchor and
cable and let go, for it was time. The sound of the surf was drowning
all else. But the anchor held, and the danger was over for the while,
and as one might think altogether; but the tide was running against the
gale, and what might happen when it turned was another matter.

Now we got the sail on deck again, and unlaced it from the yard, setting
that in place with some sort of rigging, ready to be stepped as a mast
if the wind shifted to any point that might help us off shore.

It may be thought how we watched that one cable that held us from the
waves and the place where they broke, for therein lay our only chance,
and we longed for the clear light that comes after rain, that we might
see the worst, at least, if we were to feel it. But the anchor held, and
presently we lost the feeling of a coming terror that had been over us,
the utmost peril being past. My father went to the after cabin now, and
though the poor children were bruised with the