board.

Thurstane presently learned that the wind had changed during the night, at
first dropping away for a couple of hours, then reopening with fresh rage
from the west, and finally hauling around into the northwest, whence it
now came in a steady tempest. The vessel too had altered her course; she
was no longer beating in long tacks toward the southeast; she was heading
westward and struggling to get away from the land. Thurstane asked few
questions; he was a soldier and had learned to meet fate in silence; he
knew too that men weighted with responsibilities do not like to be
catechised. But he guessed from the frequent anxious looks of the captain
eastward that the California coast was perilously near, and that the brig
was more likely to be drifting toward it than making headway from it.
Surveying through his closed hands the stormy windward horizon, he gave up
all thoughts of getting away from Clara by reaching San Diego, and turned
toward the idea of saving her from shipwreck.

None of the other passengers came on deck this morning. Garcia, horribly
seasick and frightened, held on desperately to his berth, and passed the
time in screaming for the "stewrt," cursing his evil surroundings, calling
everybody he could think of pigs, dogs, etc., and praying to saints and
angels. Coronado, not less sick and blasphemous, had more command over his
fears, and kept his prayers for the last pinch. Clara, a much better
sailor, and indeed an uncommonly good one, was so far beaten by the motion
that she did not get up, but lay as quiet as the brig would let her,
patiently awaiting results, now and then smiling at Garcia's shouts, but
more frequently thinking of Thurstane, and sometimes praying that she
might find him alive at Fort Yuma.

The steward carried cold beef, hard bread, brandy, coffee, and gruel (made
in his pantry) from stateroom to stateroom. The girl ate heartily,
inquired about the storm, and asked, "When shall we get there?" Garcia and
Coronado tried a little of the gruel and a good deal of the brandy and
water, and found, as people usually do under such circumstances, that
nothing did them any good. The old man wanted to ask the steward a hundred
questions, and yelled for his nephew to come and translate for him.
Coronado, lying on his back, made no answer to these cries of despair,
except in muttered curses and sniffs of angry laughter. So passed the
morning in the cabin.

Thurstane remained on deck, eating