ng of the catboat upon the hazard of the island head.

The crisis was upon them almost as soon as its threat could be measured.
Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose.
While the man could only scramble, choked and half-blinded, to windward
to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced
upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the
submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by
a shearing hand's-breadth.

The worst was over in a moment, and under the lee of the small island
there was a brief respite for pumping and bailing. The girl's black eyes
were shining with excitement and fearless daring, and Griswold would
have given much for time and leisure in which to catch and fix the
fleeting inspiration of the instant. But there was little space for the
artistic appreciation.

"Hurry!" she cried; "we'll have to take it again in a minute or two!"
and there was still a bucketing of the shipped sea to thrash about in
the cockpit when the island withdrew its friendly shelter and the
_Clytie_, going free and sailed as Griswold had never seen a catboat
sailed before, wallowed out into the smother.

For a little time there was not much to choose between drowning and
being hammered to death by the leaping plunges and alightings of the
frail cockle-shell which seemed to be blown bodily from crest to crest
of the short, high-pitched seas. The wind, heavily rain-laden, came in
furious gusts, flattening the reefed canvas until the bunt of the sail
dragged in the trough. Griswold climbed high on the weather rail,
leaning far out to help hold the balance between the heaving seas and
the pounding blasts. In the momentary lulls he had flitting glimpses of
the far-away town shore, with the storm-torn waste of waters
intervening. With the wind veering more and more to the west, it was a
fair run to the shelter of the home bay. But Margery was laying the
course far to the right, though to do it she was holding the catboat
cockpit-deep in the smother and taking the chance of a capsize with
every recurring gust. Griswold edged his way aft as far as he dared.

"Hadn't you better let her fall off a little more and run for it?" he
suggested, and he had to shout it into the pink ear nearest to him to
make himself heard above the roaring of the wind and the crashing
plunges of the boat.

She shook her head and made an impatient little gestu