ed down by leaden weights and
your stomach is absolutely empty.

Percy's body drooped over the bails. Though the position was horribly
uncomfortable, he had all he could do to prevent himself from going to
sleep, even despite the occasional screeches of the whistle. With an
immense effort he stiffened himself upright. Jim was gazing down into
the water.

"It's going to moderate before long," he remarked, casually.

Percy came wide awake in an instant.

"How can you tell? It's blowing as hard as ever."

"I know that. But the tide doesn't run so strong against the buoy. Just
as it always makes up before the wind comes, so it begins to go down
before the wind lessens. I believe the gale'll blow itself out by the
middle of the forenoon."

The news seemed too good to be true; but it dispelled Percy's
drowsiness. He pried his eyes open and stared around.

The waves were still running high and breaking in fiery sparkles. The
silver sharks unwearyingly kept their silent vigil about the rocking
buoy. Up the eastern horizon was stealing a faint pallor, harbinger of
the approaching dawn.

Lighter and lighter it grew. The gulls, which had been floating on the
water all night, began to take wing and fill the air with their grating
cries. The phosphorescence died out of the sea. Another day had begun.

Raising his right hand, Spurling turned its open palm toward the north.

"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed. "The wind is going down."

Even Percy could see that it was not blowing so hard. The water, too,
had grown much smoother, and the roar of the breaker was not so loud.

"It'll be calm as a mill-pond in a few hours," remarked Jim. "By noon
there ought to be some fishermen out here. They always start from
Portland on the end of a norther, and run for this buoy to make their
grounds from. All we've got to do now is to hold on and wait."

He pulled in the dory and looked her carefully over.

"Bow split open, as I thought," said he. "But apart from that she isn't
damaged any. A little work'll make her as good as new. And in the stern
is that box with the piston-rod in it. I'd have hated to lose that,
after all this fuss. Things might have turned out a good deal worse, eh,
Perce? But the next time I'll know enough to hang up at Seal Island."

Jim's cheerfulness was contagious. Percy felt better. Though he was
still tormented by hunger and thirst, the thought that relief might soon
come gave him courage to endure them.