tougher business
than Keith Macleod had bargained for. They had been out scarcely twenty
minutes when Miss White heard the man at the bow call out something,
which she could not understand, to Macleod. She saw him crane his neck
forward, as if looking ahead; and she herself, looking in that
direction, could perceive that from the horizon almost to the zenith the
stars had become invisible.

"It may be a little bit squally," he said to her, "but we shall soon be
under the lee of Iona. Perhaps you had better hold on to something."

The advice was not ill-timed; for almost as he spoke the first gust of
the squall struck the boat, and there was a sound as if everything had
been torn asunder and sent overboard. Then, as she righted just in time
to meet the crash of the next wave, it seemed as though the world had
grown perfectly black around them. The terrified woman seated there
could no longer make out Macleod's figure; it was impossible to speak
amidst this roar; it almost seemed to her that she was alone with those
howling winds and heaving waves--at night on the open sea. The wind
rose, and the sea too; she heard the men call out and Macleod answer;
and all the time the boat was creaking and groaning as she was flung
high on the mighty waves only to go staggering down into the awful
troughs behind.

"Oh, Keith!" she cried--and involuntarily she seized his arm--"are we in
danger?"

He could not hear what she said; but he understood the mute appeal.
Quickly disengaging his arm--for it was the arm that was working the
tiller--he called to her,--

"We are all right. If you are afraid, get to the bottom of the boat."

But unhappily she did not hear this; for, as he called her, a heavy sea
struck the bows, sprung high in the air, and then fell over them in a
deluge which nearly choked her. She understood, though, his throwing
away her hand. It was the triumph of brute selfishness in the moment of
danger. They were drowning, and he would not let her come near him! And
so she shrieked aloud for her father.

Hearing those shrieks, Macleod called to one of the two men, who came
stumbling along in the dark and got hold of the tiller. There was a
slight lull in the storm, and he caught her two hands and held her.

"Gertrude, what is the matter? You are perfectly safe, and so is your
father. For Heaven's sake, keep still! if you get up, you will be
knocked overboard!"

"Where is papa?" she cried.

"I am here--I am all