dependent on them for support, and _tio_ Batiste, who had survived
so many dangers through all those years! Those surely he had no right to
kill! And the sight of the three men crouching there on the wet deck,
the ropes cutting into their flesh as they held on, half stunned under
the buffets that rained upon them like hammer blows, drove all sense of
his own danger from the Rector's mind. He scarcely noticed the waves
that came splashing up around him. Nothing seemed able to stir that huge
frame of his, but an anguish had reentered his soul sharper and more
racking than that of the night before. He must live, save himself, leave
his personal affairs for later settlement, but meanwhile get those men
ashore, get those men ashore, all of them, and not add to the burden
that the lost "cat" and the crew of his other boat had put upon his
conscience.

The Rector centered his whole mind on the handling of the _Mayflower_.
No need for worry just at present. That hull would stand any sea and
they did not have to buck the storm. But how get into the harbor? That
was the crucial effort in which so many came to grief. Ahead, just
visible through the rain, the spray and the mist, the Breakwater could
already be seen, its back looming above the water like a whale driven
aground by the gale. How double that projecting point?

From succeeding crests the skipper studied the rocks that were churning
in a hell of surf, and his heart sank within him at thought of the
struggle ahead. Not another sail was in sight. Many boats, perhaps, had
gotten in. The rest were already lost On top of the Breakwater, many,
many black points, people, probably, who had come, crazy with fear, to
watch the ghastly combat between man and the elements.

All the Cabanal had started down to the giant wall of red rocks as the
first crashes of the storm had broken; and the people, indifferent to
the breakers that might easily sweep them off, had gathered on the point
in front of the lighthouse, as though their presence there might be of
some help to their dear ones in the fight to enter the harbor. Under the
torrential downpour women kept coming on the run, the rain biting at
their faces, the gale washing their skirts about and whistling in their
ears. And they stood there on the rocks, their shawls soaked through,
praying, screaming, raising their hands to heaven. Men in oil skins and
sea boots came hurrying along the shore, jumping from stone to stone,
stopping