."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Morris glanced back to where a mile behind them the sea was beginning to
foam ominously over the Sunk Rocks, here and there throwing up isolated
jets of spray, like those caused by the blowing of a whale.

"I am going to try to clear them," he said, "and then run before it.
Perhaps we might make the Far Lightship five and twenty miles away. Help
me to pull up the sail. So, that's enough; she can't stand too much. Now
hold the sheet, and if I bid you, let go that instant. I'll steer."

A few seconds later the boat's head had come round, and she was rushing
through the water at great speed, parallel with the line of the Sunk
Rocks, but being momentarily driven nearer to them. The girl, Stella
Fregelius, stared at the farthest point of foam which marked the end of
the reef.

"You must hold her up if you want to clear it," she said quietly.

"I can't do any more in this wind," he answered. "You seem to know about
boats; you will understand."

She nodded, and on they rushed, the ever-freshening gale on their beam.

"This boat sails well," said Stella, as a little water trickled over the
gunwale.

Morris made no answer, his eyes were fixed upon the point of rock; only
bidding his companion hold the tiller, he did something to the sail. Now
they were not more than five hundred yards away.

"It will be a very near thing," she said.

"Very," he answered, "and I don't want to be officious, but I suggest
that you might do well to say your prayers."

She looked at him, and bowed her head for a minute or so. Then suddenly
she lifted it again and stared at the terror ahead of them with wide,
unflinching eyes.

On sped the boat while more and more did tide and gale turn her prow
into the reef. At the end of it a large, humpbacked rock showed now and
again through the surf, like the fin of a black whale. That was the rock
which they must clear if they would live. Morris took the boat-hook and
laid it by his side. They were very near now. They would clear it; no,
the wash sucked them in like a magnet.

"Good-bye," said Morris instinctively, but Stella answered nothing.

The wave that lifted them broke upon the rock in a cloud of spray
wherein for some few instants their boat seemed to vanish. They were
against it; the boat touched, and Stella felt a long ribbon of seaweed
cut her like a whip across the face. Kneeling down, Morris thrust madly
with the boat-hook, and thus for