the thick
gloom ahead. Then, suddenly, the same voice cried aloud in a tone
of still greater excitement, assurance, and certainty, "There it is
again! I knew I saw it! It's a ship's light!"

In another moment I caught sight of it myself--a faint, distant,
intermittent twinkle on the horizon nearly dead ahead.

"It's the anchor-light of the _Onward_!" I shouted in fierce
excitement. "Spread the corner of the mainsail a little more if you
can, boys, so as to give her better steerage-way. We've got to make
that ship! Hold her steady on the light, Heck, even if you have to put
her in the trough of the sea. We might as well founder as drift past!"

The men forward caught up the loose edges of the mainsail and extended
it as widely as possible to the gale, clinging to the thwarts and the
stump of the mast to avoid being jerked overboard by the bellying
canvas. Heck brought the sloop's head around so that the light was
under our bow, and on we staggered through the dark, storm-lashed
turmoil of waters, shipping a sea now and then, but half sailing, half
drifting toward the anchored bark. The wind came in such fierce
gusts and squalls that one could hardly say from what quarter it was
blowing; but, as nearly as I could judge in the thick darkness, it had
shifted three or four points to the westward. If such were the case,
we had a fair chance of making the ship, which lay nearer the eastern
than the western coast of the gulf.

"Don't let her head fall off any, Heck," I cried. "Jam her over to the
eastward as much as you can, even if the sea comes into her. We can
keep her clear with our hats. If we drift past we're gone!"

As we approached the bark the light grew rapidly brighter: but I did
not realise how near we were until the lantern, which was hanging in
the ship's fore-rigging, swung for an instant behind the jib-stay, and
the vessel's illuminated cordage suddenly came out in delicate tracery
against the black sky, less than a hundred yards away.

"There she is!" shouted Sandford. "We're close on her!"

The bark was pitching furiously to her anchors, and as we drifted
rapidly down upon her we could hear the hoarse roar of the gale
through her rigging, and see a pale gleam of foam as the sea broke in
sheets of spray against her bluff bows.

"Shall I try to round to abreast of her?" cried Heck to me, "or shall
I go bang down on her?"

"Don't take any chances," I shouted. "Better strike her, and go to
pieces along