award.

About two o'clock, being unable to sleep, from the rocking of the vessel,
Electra, knowing that Eric was still on deck, crept up the steps in the
darkness, for the lights had been extinguished. The captain was passing,
but paused, saying in a whisper--

"Is that you, Miss Grey? Come this way and I will show you something."

He grasped her hand, led her to the bow, where Eric was sitting on a coil
of rope, and, pointing straightforward, added in the same suppressed tone--

"Look right ahead--you see a light? The Philistines are upon us! Look well,
and you will see a dark, irregular, moving mass; that is the steamer of
which I told you. They have found out at last that there is going to be all
sorts of a gale, and as they can't ride it like my snug, dainty little
egg-shell, they are putting back with all possible speed. Twenty minutes
ago they were bearing down on me; now you see that they will pass to our
left. What a pity they don't know their neighbours!"

"Do you think that they will not see you?"

"Certainly! with sails down, and lights out, there is nothing to be seen on
such a night as this. There! don't you hear her paddles?"

"No. I hear nothing but the roar of the wind and water."

"Ah! that is because your ears are not trained like mine. Great Neptune!
how she labours already! Now! be silent."

On came the steamer, which Electra's untrained eyes, almost blinded by
spray, could barely discern; and her heart beat like a muffled drum as it
drew nearer and nearer. Once she heard a low, chuckling laugh of
satisfaction escape the captain; then, with startling distinctness, the
ringing of a bell was borne from the steamer's deck.

"Four bells--two o'clock. How chagrined they will be to-morrow, when they
find out they passed me without paying their respects!" whispered the
captain.

Gradually the vessel receded, the dark mass grew indistinct, the light
flickered, and was soon lost to view, and the sound of the labouring
machinery was drowned in the roar of the waves.

Before he went back on deck, the captain made a comfortable place for her
on the sofa in the little cabin. The storm increased until it blew a
perfect hurricane, and the schooner rolled and creaked, now and then
shivering in every timber. It was utterly impossible to sleep, and Eric,
who was suffering from a headache, passed a miserable night. In the white
sickly dawn the captain looked in again, and Electra thought that no ray of
sun