ilent lady said--

"Oh, no! Marion and I seem to take kindly to bad weather. I believe if
she could wear a sou'-wester she would hang on to the rigging. It's her
combative instinct. But I do hope there is no danger for the poor
fishermen?"

Mr. Blair very quietly said--

"If their vessels were like ours there would be no fear. We haven't an
unsound rope or block, but many of the smacks are shockingly ill-found,
and one rope or spar may cost a crew their lives if it's faulty. The
glass has gone down badly, and we are in for a gale, and a heavy one.
But my ship would be quite comfortable in the Bay of Biscay."

A trampling on deck sounded. "See if the ladies can look from the
companion," said Tom Lennard. "The sight should be splendid. You and I
must shove on oilskins, Blair and see if we can keep our legs."

This was almost the end of the night's conversation. Those good
mission-folks, as has been seen, contrived to get on without saying
either clever things or bitter things, and persons who possess the
higher intellect may fancy that this was a sign of a poor spirit.
Perhaps; and yet I have read somewhere that the poor in spirit may not
fare so very badly in the long run.

CHAPTER II.

THE BREEZE.

The spectacle on deck was appalling, and the sounds were appalling also.
The blast rushed by with a deep ground note which rose in pitch to a
yell as the gust hurled itself through the cordage; each sea that came
down seemed likely to be the last, but the sturdy yacht--no floating
chisel was she--ran up the steep with a long, slow glide, and smashed
into the black hollow with a sharp explosive sound. Marion Dearsley
might have been pardoned had she shown tremors as the flying mountains
towered over the vessel. Once a great black wall heaved up and doubled
the intensity of the murky midnight by a sinister shade; there came a
horrible silence, and then, with a loud bellow, the wall burst into ruin
and crashed down on the ship in a torrent which seemed made up of a
thousand conflicting streams. The skipper silently dashed aft, flung his
arms round Tom Lennard, and pinned him to the mast; Mr. Blair hung on,
though he was drifted aft with his feet off the deck until he hung like
a totally new description of flying signal; the ladies were drenched by
the deluge which rushed down below, and the steward, when he saw the
water swashing about over his cabin floor, exclaimed with discreet
bitterness on the folly of inv