it,
that there was a crash, a banging and booming of the canvas, and the
boom and gaff. The first mate, who was standing near the mast, was
knocked down, narrowly escaping going overboard.

"Oh, what has happened?" cried Ruth.

"Be still!" commanded Alice, clutching her sister by the arm. "Yelling
isn't going to do any good. We're not hurt."

They were standing near a companionway, well out of reach of the falling
sail.

"Oh, we're sinking! We're sinking!" screamed Miss Dixon.

"And the sharks! The terrible sharks in the water!" hysterically added
her friend.

The other ladies of the party were very much frightened, naturally, not
only by the accident to the sail, but by the screams of the two former
vaudeville actresses.

"Lively now, men!" called Jack Jepson, who happened to be nearest the
confusion of tangled ropes and sail. "Get him below. He doesn't seem to
be much hurt."

He pointed to the motionless body of the first mate. A quick examination
showed that the man was badly stunned, but that seemed to be the extent
of his injuries, as far as could be told.

"Up with her now! Up with her!" the second mate cried, as he gave orders
for hoisting the sail again, for the schooner was not under proper
control with the main canvas down, and a storm coming up rapidly. The
sail had been reefed, so the gaff had not fallen as far as otherwise
would have been the case.

"What's the matter?" shouted Captain Brisco who came up from his cabin
with Hen Lacomb. The two were seldom apart of late. A glance served to
tell the commander what had happened. He saw that Jack Jepson had
matters well in hand, and though Alice guessed that Captain Brisco had
no love for his second mate, the commander knew seamanship when he saw
it.

"Lively now!" he cried. "That's the idea! We'll run before the gale
now."

"But the motorboat!" cried Ruth, who had conquered her desire to flee to
the cabin, and hide her eyes and ears from such nerve-racking sights and
sounds. "Where is the _Ajax_--and Mr. Sneed--and--Russ?" she faltered.

"They'll probably be coming in now," the captain said, but he did not
take the trouble to look around and see. "We can't wait for them in this
wind," he went on.

"But we _must_ wait for him!" Ruth cried, getting excited. "We can't go
off and leave them in that motorboat, on the ocean, in a storm! We must
wait!" She started toward Captain Brisco, with her hands held out
appealingly.

Alice was wildly loo