ave warning. Then he fell upon the huge stick,
rolled under it, and shoved arms and legs under the foot of the sail.
Barely had he clutched the spar in fierce embrace before it began its
return journey. It was a dizzy sweep across the deck, a breath-taking
plunge.

When the spar collided with the stays he felt as if arms and legs would
be wrenched from his body. He did not venture to move or to relax his
hold. He clung with all his strength, and nerved himself for the return
journey. He had watched carefully, and knew something of the vagaries
of the giant flail. When it was flung to port the wind helped to hold
it there until the resistless surge of the schooner sent it flying wild
once more. He knew that no mere flesh and blood could endure many
of those collisions with the stays. He resolved to act on the next
oscillation to port, in order that his strength might not be gone.

"See that the cable runs free!" he screamed as he felt the stick lift
for its swoop.

He swung himself upward over the spar the moment it struck, and the
momentum helped him. He ran again, steadying himself like a tight-wire
acrobat. He snatched the noose from his shoulders, slipped it over
the end of the boom, and yelled an order, with all the strength of his
lungs:

"Pull her taut!"

At that instant the boom started to swing again.

Standing on the end of the spar, he was outboard; the frothing sea was
under him. He could not jump then; to leap when the boom was sweeping
across the deck meant a skinful of broken bones; to wait till the boom
brought up against the stays, so he realized, would invite certain
disaster; he would either be crushed between the boom and shrouds or
snapped far out into the ocean as a bean 'is filliped by a thumb. On the
extreme end of the spar the leverage would be so great that he could not
hope to cling there with arms and legs.

A queer flick of thought brought to Mayo the phrase, "Between the devil
and the deep sea." That flying boom was certainly the devil, and the
foaming sea looked mighty deep.

Her weather roll was more sluggish and Mayo had a moment to look about
for some mode of escape.

He saw the sail of "number four" mast sprawling loose in its lazy-jacks,
unfurled and showing a tumbled expanse of canvas. When he was inside the
rail, and while the boom was gathering momentum, he took his life in his
hands and his grit between his teeth and leaped toward the sail. He made
the jump just at the