ut to what a death, if that
agonised face and distorted visage betokened aught! And I had promised
to aid him, and was drifting there with the schooner, raising no hand
to give him help.

"Skipper," I cried, "this time we'll risk getting a boat off; I'm going
aboard that vessel now, if I drown before I return." Then I turned to
the men, and said: "You saw the yacht pass just now, and you saw that
man aboard her--he's my friend, and I'm going to fetch him. Who amongst
you is coming with me?"

They hung back for a moment before the stuff that was in them showed
itself; then Dan lurched out, and said--

"I go!"

Billy Eightbells followed.

"And I," said he, "if it's the Old One himself."

"And I," said Piping Jack.

"And I," said Planks, the carpenter.

"Come on, then, and take your knives in your belts. Skipper, put about
and show another light."

He obeyed mechanically, saying nothing; but he was a brave man, I knew.
It was our luck to find that the boat went away from the davits with no
more than a couple of buckets of water in her; and in two minutes' time
the men were giving way, and we rose and fell to the still choppy sea,
while the green spray ran from our oilskins in gallons. In this way we
made a couple of hundred yards in the direction we judged the yacht
would turn, and lit a flash. It showed her a quarter of a mile away,
jibbing round and coming into the wind again.

"We shall catch her on the tack if she holds her bearing," said Dan,
"and be aboard in ten minutes."

"What then?" said Billy.

"Ay, what then?" echoed the others.

"But it's a friend of the guv'nor's," repeated Dan, "and he's in
danger--no common danger, neither. Please God, we all get to port
again."

"Please God!" they responded, and Roderick, who sat at the tiller with
me, whispered--

"I never saw men who liked a job less."

As the good fellows gave way again, and the boat rode easily before the
wind, I noticed for the first time that the clouds were scattering; and
we had not made another cable's length when a great cloud above us
showed silver at its edges, and opaquely white in its centre, through
which the moon shone. Anon it dissolved, and the transformation on the
surface of the water was a transformation from the dark of storm to the
chrome light of a summer moon. There, around us, the panorama stretched
out: the sea, white-waved and rolling; the lights of a steamer to port;
of a couple of sailing vessels astern;