Mayo. "Will you let this handclasp tell
you all I feel about it--all your trouble, all your brave work in this
terrible time? I am so frightened, Captain Mayo! But I'm going to keep
my eyes on you--and I'll be ashamed to show you how frightened I am."

He returned the fervent clasp of her fingers with gentle pressure and
reassuring smile. "Honestly, I feel too ugly to die just now. Let's keep
on hoping."

But when he stood up and beheld the white mountains of water between
their little boat and the shore, and realized what would happen when
they were in that savage tumult, with the undertow dragging and the
surges lashing, he felt no hope within himself.

From the appearance of the coast he could not determine their probable
location. The land was barren and sandy. There seemed to be no inlet.
As far as he could see the line of frothing white was unbroken. The
sea foamed across broad shallows, where no boat could possibly remain
upright and no human being could hope to live.

Nevertheless, he remained standing and peered under his hand, resolved
to be alert till the last, determined to grasp any opportunity.

All at once he beheld certain black lines in perpendicular silhouette
against the foam. At first he was not certain just what they could be,
and he observed them narrowly as the boat tossed on its way.

At last their identity was revealed. They were weir-stakes. The weir
itself was evidently dismantled. Such stakes as remained were set some
distance from one another, like fence-posts located irregularly.

He made hasty observation of bearings as the boat drifted, and was
certain that the sea would carry them down past the stakes. How near
they would pass depended on the vagary of the waves and the tide. He
realized that three men, even if they were able seamen, could do little
in the way of rowing or guiding the longboat in the welter of that sea,
now surging madly over the shoals. He knew that there was not much water
under the keel, for the ocean was turbid with swirling sand, and the
waves were more mountainous, heaped high by the friction of the water on
the bottom. Every now and then the crest of a roller flaunted a banner
of bursting spray, showing breakers near at hand.

Mayo hurried to the bow of the boat and pulled free a long stretch of
cable. He made a bowline slip-knot, opened a noose as large as he could
handle, coiled the rest of the cable carefully, and poised himself on a
thwart.

"What n