and I
realized that there was plenty of wind left, despite the fact that the
gale had broken or was breaking. Also, under this additional canvas, I
could feel the _Elsinore_ moving through the water. Pike now sent the
Maltese Cockney to help Tom Spink at the wheel. As for himself, he took
his stand beside the booby-hatch, where he could gauge the _Elsinore_,
gaze to leeward, and keep his eye on the helmsmen.

"Full and by," was his reiterated command. "Keep her a good full--a rap-
full; but don't let her fall away. Hold her to it, and drive her."

He took no notice whatever of me, although I, on my way to the lee of the
chart-house, stood at his shoulder a full minute, offering him a chance
to speak. He knew I was there, for his big shoulder brushed my arm as he
swayed and turned to warn the helmsmen in the one breath to hold her up
to it but to keep her full. He had neither time nor courtesy for a
passenger in such a moment.

Sheltering by the chart-house, I saw the moon appear. It grew brighter
and brighter, and I saw the land, dead to leeward of us, not three
hundred yards away. It was a cruel sight--black rock and bitter snow,
with cliffs so perpendicular that the _Elsinore_ could have laid
alongside of them in deep water, with great gashes and fissures, and with
great surges thundering and spouting along all the length of it.

Our predicament was now clear to me. We had to weather the bight of land
and islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked directly
on shore. The only way out was to drive through the water, to drive fast
and hard, and this was borne in upon me by Mr. Pike bounding past to the
break of the poop, where I heard him shout to Mr. Mellaire to set the
mainsail.

Evidently the second mate was dubious, for the next cry of Mr. Pike's
was:

"Damn the reef! You'd be in hell first! Full mainsail! All hands to
it!"

The difference was appreciable at once when that huge spread of canvas
opposed the wind. The _Elsinore_ fairly leaped and quivered as she
sprang to it, and I could feel her eat to windward as she at the same
time drove faster ahead. Also, in the rolls and gusts, she was forced
down till her lee-rail buried and the sea foamed level across to her
hatches. Mr. Pike watched her like a hawk, and like certain death he
watched the Maltese Cockney and Tom Spink at the wheel.

"Land on the lee bow!" came a cry from for'ard, that was carried on from
mouth to mout