the use of getting scared? It's a sailor's place to die at sea! I always
said so: sooner a lobster than a mumbling parson and the worms! Pull
yourselves together, boys. And lash yourselves to something. The boat's
all right. Just don't get washed overboard!"

_Tio_ Batiste and the two sailors knotted the ends of their sashes
around the mast. Tonet tied the little boy securely to a ring astern;
but seeing that his brother, for a show of bravado, had sat down beside
the tiller free, he crouched at the railing, bracing himself against a
chock on the deck. A funereal silence settled on the _Mayflower_. The
sea was now in such commotion that the kelp on the bottom showed its
streamers in the troughs of the waves. The crests of foam were turning a
dirty yellow from the mud stirred up. Spray, rain, bits of seaweed,
lashed the faces and hands of the sailors cruelly. They were all now
soaked to the skin.

As the vessel rose to the crests, the keel half out of water aft, the
Rector could see other boats from the Cabanal in the distance, vanishing
in the mists of the horizon. They were all running with poles virtually
bare, scudding before the wind for shelter, though it would be much more
dangerous making port than to hold to the open sea. And the claws of
remorse sank deep into Pascualo's heart. He seemed to be awakening from
a horrible dream. That night of horror passed in the streets of the
village! Those four glasses of brandy at the tavern! That argument with
the men on shore, and his impulse to put to sea! Could he have been
guilty of all that? A more criminal wretch he was than the pair who had
betrayed him. If he had been tired of life, he could have tied a rock
around his neck and jumped off the Breakwater! But what right had he to
drive all those innocent boys to death? What would the people at home
say of him? It was his fault that half the fishermen had gone out in the
very teeth of the gale that morning! And then, his other boat! Every
soul aboard her lost, and because they had obeyed his orders like true
fishermen! And how many other vessels had met the same fate? There was
deep shame on his face as he looked at _tio_ Batiste and the two
sailors, lashed to the mast there and whipped and bleeding in the storm!
He did not choose to look at his brother nor at Pascualet. Little it
mattered if they should die--for at thought of them the thirst for
vengeance flamed in him anew. But the other two, sons of mothers, old
and