onnois, "an' would he send my Auntie Helena back,
because she's offle sick."

"Take good care of your Auntie Helena, Jimmy," said I, "and help her
aft along the rail."

I followed up the companionway, and saw her going slowly, head down,
her coat of lace blown wide; her hand at her throat, and sobbing in
what Jimmy and I both knew was fear of the storm.

"Have they got everything they need there, Jimmy?" I asked, as he
returned.

"Sure. And the old girl's going to have a peach of a one this
time--she can't hardly rock in a rockin' chair 'thout gettin' seasick.
I think it's great, don't you? Look at her buck into 'em!"

Jimmy and his friend shared this immunity from _mal de mer_. I could
see Jean now helping haul down our burgee, and the deck boy, Willy, in
his hurried work about the boat. Williams, I could not see. But
Peterson was now calm and much in his element, for a better skipper
than he never sailed a craft on the Great Lakes.

"I think she's going to blow great guns," said he, "and like enough
the other engine'll pop any minute."

"Yes?" I answered, stepping to the wheel. "In which case we go to Davy
Jones about when, Peterson?"

"We don't go!" he rejoined. "She's the grandest little ship afloat,
and not a thing's the matter with her."

"Can we make the channel and run inside the long key below the Cote
Blanche Bayou?"

"Sure we can. You'd better get the covers off the boats, and see the
bottom plugs in and some water and supplies shipped aboard--but
there's not the slightest danger in the world for _this_ boat, let me
tell you that, sir. I've seen her perform before now, and there's not
a storm can blow on this coast she won't ride through."

CHAPTER XXX

IN WHICH IS SHIPWRECK OF OTHER SORT

After the fashion of these gulf storms, this one tarried not in its
coming, nor offered any clemency when it had arrived. Where but a
half-hour since the heavens had been fair, the sea rippling, suave and
kind, now the sky was not visible at all and the tumbling waves about
us rolled savagely as in a nature wholly changed. The wind sang
ominously overhead, as with lift and plunge we drove on into a bank of
mist. A chill as of doom swiftly had replaced the balm of the southern
sky; and forsooth, all the mercy of the world seemed lost and gone.

And as our craft, laboring, thrust forward blindly into this reek,
with naught of comfort on any hand, nor even the dimmest ray of hope
visible from any fix