h smear
that meant breakers; and the smear no sooner showed than above it a
great black cliff stood out as if 'twere a moving thing and meant to
carve into us right amidships--a great cliff with a rock on it like the
Duke of Wellington's nose. A man from the top of it could have jumped
onto our bulwarks, and I shut my eyes as it overhung, waiting for the
crash; but it slid by and was gone like a slide you pass through a
magic lantern.

"'Port now! Port for your life!' she called out; and I saw first of all
her hand go out to push Petersen off, and then the little sparks
flickering on her rings as she gripped the spokes, and checking 'em,
dragged the wheel back hand over hand. A man's strength she must have
had. 'Help me,' was all she said, in a kind of panting voice, and as I
caught hold to help it over, 'That was the Head! Hard up, now! and ring
down for full speed!' 'Full speed!' I grunted, yet pressing on the
wheel all the time--'It's stop her you mean, and anchor.' 'What, here?
with Hell-deeps on your starboard bow and a five-knot tide running!
Full speed ahead--there's no room to swing--no, nor half.' She stopped
my hand on the bell and rang down herself, 'full speed ahead'; and the
passengers whooping away at 'John Peel!' all the while.

"Then, as the engines began to run, she looked at me, still holding on
by the wheel. 'They may do it,' she said, 'they may do it. At half
speed she'd never point off, against a five-knot tide.' 'God have mercy
on us!' was all I could say. 'If you know--?' 'Know?' she caught me up.
'I was brought up to know. But she'll never do it if she don't pick up
way.... Ah, that's better!' she said with a kind of sigh staring over
the starboard bow into the fog. 'Now!'--and we held our breath, all of
us; for Mr. Francillon was back on the bridge standing close behind her
and wondering what the devil was up. She let thirty seconds pass, and
then turned to him as if he'd been there all the while and she knew it.

"'Look astern,' she said, 'and maybe, if you're clever, you can see the
Monk.'

"'The Monk!' We cried this out together; for that we had passed the
Monk without sighting her or catching sound of her fog-horns was a
thing incredible.

"'But so it is,' said she. 'We have passed the Monk; passed it close.
Don't I know the Pope's Head on Lesser Teague? Now hard-a-port
still--for we've the Gunnel Dogs somewhere there to leeward, and
they're worse almost than Hell-deeps.'

"We were r