"We may be making a bit of headway no'th, or a bit of leeway west,"
said Weeks, "or we may be doing a sternboard. All that I'm sure of
is that you and me are one day going to open Gorleston Harbour. This
smack's cost me too dear for me to lose her now. Lucky there's the
tell-tale compass in the cabin to show us the wind hasn't shifted."

All the energy of the man was concentrated upon this wrestle with the
gale for the ownership of the _Willing Mind_; and he imparted his
energy to his companion. They lived upon deck, wet and starved and
perishing with the cold--the cold of December in the North Sea, when
the spray cuts the face like a whip-cord. They ate by snatches when
they could, which was seldom; and they slept by snatches when they
could, which was even less often. And at the end of the fourth day
there came a blinding fall of snow and sleet, which drifted down
the companion, sheeted the ropes with ice, and hung the yards with
icicles, and which made every inch of brass a searing-iron and every
yard of the deck a danger to the foot.

It was when this storm began to fall that Weeks grasped Duncan
fiercely by the shoulder.

"What is it you did on land?" he cried. "Confess it, man! There may be
some chance for us if you go down on your knees and confess it."

Duncan turned as fiercely upon Weeks. Both men were overstrained with
want of food and sleep.

"I'm not your Jonah--don't fancy it! I did nothing on land!"

"Then what did you come out for?"

"What did you? To fight and wrestle for your ship, eh? Well, I came
out to fight and wrestle for my immortal soul, and let it go at that!"

Weeks turned away, and as he turned, slipped on the frozen deck. A
lurch of the smack sent him sliding into the rudder-chains, where he
lay. Once he tried to rise, and fell back. Duncan hauled himself along
the bulwarks to him.

"Hurt?"

"Leg broke. Get me down into the cabin. Lucky there's the tell-tale.
We'll get the _Willing Mind_ berthed by the quay, see if we don't."
That was still his one thought, his one belief.

Duncan hitched a rope round Weeks, underneath his arms, and lowered
him as gently as he could down the companion.

"Lift me on to the table so that my head's just beneath the compass!
Right! Now take a turn with the rope underneath the table, or I'll
roll off. Push an oily under my head, and then go for'ard and see if
you can find a fish-box. Take a look that the wheel's fast."

It seemed to Duncan that