the place of his fame. He was able
to take his part freely amongst both the passengers and the officers.
Even amongst the crew he soon came to be known; the men liked his
geniality, and instinctively respected his enormous strength and his
manifest force of character. Men who work and who know danger soon learn
to recognise the forces which overcome both. And as sufficient time had
not elapsed to impair his hardihood or lower his vast strength he was
facile princeps. And so the crew acknowledged him; to them he was a born
Captain whom to obey would be a natural duty.

After some days the weather changed. The great ship, which usually
rested even-keeled on two waves, and whose bilge keels under normal
conditions rendered rolling impossible, began to pitch and roll like a
leviathan at play. The decks, swept by gigantic seas, were injured
wherever was anything to injure. Bulwarks were torn away as though they
had been compact of paper. More than once the double doors at the head
of the companion stairs had been driven in. The bull's eye glasses of
some of the ports were beaten from their brazen sockets. Nearly all the
boats had been wrecked, broken or torn from their cranes as the great
ship rolled heavily in the trough, or giant waves had struck her till she
quivered like a frightened horse.

At that season she sailed on the far northern course. Driven still
farther north by the gales, she came within a short way of south of
Greenland. Then avoiding Moville, which should have been her place of
call, she ran down the east of Britain, the wild weather still
prevailing.

CHAPTER XXXI--THE LIFE-LINE

On the coast of Angleshire the weather in the early days of September had
been stormy. With the south-west wind had come deluges of rain, not a
common thing for the time of year on the east coast. Stephen, whose
spirits always rose with high wind, was in a condition of prolonged
excitement. She could not keep still; every day she rode long distances,
and found a wonderful satisfaction in facing the strong winds. Like a
true horsewoman she did not mind the wet, and had glorious gallops over
the grassy ridge and down the slopes on the farther side, out on the open
road or through the endless grass rides amid the pine woods.

On the Tuesday morning the storm was in full sweep, and Stephen was in
wild spirits. Nothing would do her but to go out on the tower of the
castle where she could walk about, and l