ock in the morning she fell asleep, and I knelt by her
sleeping form, and prayed for mercy and protection.

It was much about this hour that Caudel's face again showed in the
hatch. I crawled along the deck and up the steps to him, and he
immediately said to me in a voice that trembled with agitation:

"Mr. Barclay, good noose, sir. The gale's ataking off."

I clasped my hands, and could have hugged the dripping figure of the
man to my breast.

"Yes, sir," he continued, "the breeze is slackening. There's no
mistake about it. The horizon's opening too."

"Heaven be praised. And what of the leak, Caudel?"

"'Taint worse than it was, sir, though it's bad enough."

"If the weather should moderate--"

"Well then, if the leak don't gain, we may manage to carry her home.
That'll have to be found out, sir. But seeing the yacht's condition, I
shall be for trans-shipping you and the lady to anything inwards bound,
that may come along. Us men'll take the yacht to port, providing
she'll let us." He paused, and then said: "There might be no harm now,
perhaps, in firing off that there gun. If a smack 'ud show herself,
she'd be willing to stand by for the sake of the salvage. We'll also
send up a few rockets, sir. But how about the young lady, Mr. Barclay?"

"Everything must be done," I replied, "that is likely to preserve our
lives."

There was some gunpowder aboard, but where Caudel had stowed it I did
not know. However, five minutes after he had left me, and whilst I was
sitting by the side of my sweetheart, who still slept, the gun was
discharged. It sent a small shock through the little fabric, as though
she had gently touched ground, or run into some floating object, but
the report, blending with the commotion of the seas and bell-like
ringing, and wolfish howlings of the wind, penetrated the deck in a
note so dull that Grace never stirred. Ten or twelve times was this
little cannon discharged at intervals of five and ten minutes, and I
could hear the occasional rush of a rocket, like a giant hissing in
wrath, sounding through the stormy uproar.

Tragical noises to harken to, believe me! communicating a significance
dark as death, to the now ceaseless pulsing of the pump, to the blows
of the sea against the yacht's bow, and to every giddy rise and fall of
the labouring little structure amid the hills and valleys of that
savage Channel sea.

CHAPTER VII

THE CARTHUSIAN

From time to time, I w