ips. "I remember very clearly now." She spoke
quietly, then she closed her eyes for a second; when she opened them
they were stern and hard.

"Captain Merrithew," she said, as though to hasten from the subject, "I
know we are in danger. Your silence has said as much. Yet the yacht
seems to be going finely--"

Dan made no reply.

"Do you think I am a coward? Is that the reason you are silent?"

Dan made no attempt to conceal his annoyance.

"Well, Miss Howland, if you are not a coward, if you can keep what you
know to yourself, listen: We're taking in a little water. It's a race
between the yacht and the leak; the yacht ought to win out. Now you
know as much as I do."

"I am not frightened; my curiosity is natural. Is there a chance that
the yacht may not get where you are taking her?"

"To the Assateague beach--no, I don't think there is--if all goes well."

"If all goes well! Then there is a chance--a chance we may--"

"Oh, we'll be all right." Dan was temperamentally straightforward and
honest, and his assertions were uttered with a tentative inflection
which fell far from carrying conviction to the aroused senses of the
girl.

She stepped closer to Dan.

"May I say something? We are in danger. I have been thinking of
things since you came aboard--since I have been sitting in the saloon
with the men who are different--"

Dan could see that the girl, always evidently one of dominant emotions,
was overwrought, and something told him she had no business to express
the thoughts which filled her mind, that she would be sorry later that
she had spoken. He had interrupted her by a gesture. Now his voice
came cool and even.

"Miss Howland, don't. I've got to take care of this yacht."

A quick sense of just what he meant shot through the girl's mind. She
raised her eyes and looked at him straight. They were blazing, not
altogether with anger. She trembled; she flushed and moved
uncertainly. Then, without a word, she turned and left him.

"A half-foot more water in the last half-hour," reported Arthur.

As Dan turned to Terry, that officer silently pointed to the northward,
where a tall column of black smoke seemed to rise from the waters. A
steamship! Yes, but was it coming toward them? Was it going away? Or
would it pass them far out to sea? For fifteen minutes he watched it
through his binoculars, and then he glanced down to the deck and called
to a sailor to send Mr. Howland to th