ars
of iron, for the distance of thirty or forty fathoms. But, the leeward set
of the vessel under way was too fast to give her any chance of bringing
this new danger on her consort. When a cable's length distant, the Sea
Lion, of the Vineyard, _did_ seem as if she might weather her consort;
but, ere that short space was passed over, it was found that she fell off
so fast, by means of her drift, as to carry her fairly clear of her stern.
The two masters, holding with one hand to some permanent object by which
to steady themselves, and each pressing his tarpaulin firmly down on his
head with the other, had a minute's conversation when the schooners were
nearest together.

"Do your anchors hold?" demanded Daggett, who was the first to speak, and
who put his question as if he thought his own fate depended on the answer.

"I'm sorry to say they do not. We drift our length in about two minutes."

"That will put off the evil moment an hour or two. Look what a wake _we_
are making!"

Sure enough, that wake was frightful! No sooner was the head of the Sea
Lion, of the Vineyard, fairly up with the stern of the Sea Lion, of Oyster
Pond, than Gardiner perceived that she went off diagonally, moving quite
as fast to leeward as she went ahead. This was so very obvious that a line
drawn from the quarter of Roswell's craft, in a quartering direction,
would almost have kept the other schooner in its range from the moment
that her bow hove heavily past.

"God bless you!--God bless you!" cried Roswell Gardiner, waving his hand
in adieu, firmly persuaded that he and the Vineyard master were never to
meet again in this world. "The survivors must let the fate of the lost be
known. At the pinch, I shall out boats, if I can."

The other made no answer. It would have been useless, indeed, to attempt
it; since no human voice had power to force itself up against such a
gale, the distance that had now to be overcome.

"That schooner will be in the breakers in half an hour," said Hazard, who
stood by the side of young Gardiner. "Why don't he anchor! No power short
of Divine Providence can save her."

"And Divine Providence will do it--thanks to Almighty God for his
goodness!" exclaimed Roswell Gardiner. "Did you perceive that, Mr. Hazard?"

The '_that_' of our young mariner was, in truth, a most momentous omen.
The wind had lulled so suddenly that the rags of sails which the other
schooner carried actually flapped. At first our seamen thou