hoarse with fury.

Jed Tyler thrust a ghastly dewy face out of the windlass room.

"I can't do it, Hat!" he gasped.

"You can't! Don't tell me you can't! Everything's been done that's been
tried. You drop that hook or I'll know the reason why!"

"The friction band's broke square in two."

"Oh, damn it all, if I must say so--there!" said Hat bitterly, for she
was not captain in name only. "If there's any such thing as break it's
break at a time like this. Let go that port anchor."

"Both wildcats will turn idle the way things are here."

"You do as I say! The weight of the chain may check her in some."

Tyler dropped his other hook.

"How much chain have we got on that starboard anchor? Do you know?"

"About one hundred and seventy-five fathoms."

Hat went aft again and gave a calculating glance. When the chain had
been paid out to the bitter end the ship would bring up perforce if the
anchor had caught on, for the bitter end had a round turn taken about
the foot of the foremast, and was shackled to the keelson with a monster
shackle. But--what was the width of the harbor at this point?

"Give her port helm, you ninny," said Hat, wrapping herself in her arms.
She shivered, partly because the night was chill and partly from nervous
excitement. There was no time to be lost.

"Can't. The rudder's bolted in the amidships position," said Jed in
shaking accents.

This had been done to make sure that that giant tail-piece should meet
the water squarely, as otherwise the thrust of the ship might snap the
rudder post like a pipe-stem.

"Well, I guess the horse is out of the stable, then, that's what I
guess," Hat said hoarsely. "She's launched herself now with a
vengeance."

They fell silent. With the indifference to danger of a sleepwalker the
_Minnie Williams_ marched across the starlit harbor.

Presently Hat brought down a heavy hand on her spouse's lean shoulder.

"You see what she's going to do, don't you?" she cried. "She's going to
mix it with the Higgins place, that's what she's going to do! Give them
a blue light. They're awake. I see a light burning in that south
window."

Tyler fetched a blue light; but his matches were wet with the sweat of
his efforts in the windlass room. He could not strike fire.

"What are you doing? What are you doing, man?" shrieked Hat. "Come, if
you can't strike a light give them a shot out of that shotgun. The whole
place is coming down round their ears in a minute."