blew round the point. It seemed
to fly along just on the hither side of that mural darkness, skilfully
tacking to reach the end of the-reef before the wall pushed it on the
rocks. Suddenly, the long low stretch of the reef broke into white
foam, and then passed from sight under the black wall, against which
the little sail still flickered. The girl fetched a long, silent breath.
They were inside the reef, in comparatively smooth water, and to her
ignorance they were safe. But the rain would be coming in another
moment, and Mrs. Maynard would be drenched; and Grace would be to blame
for her death. She ran to the closet, and pulled down her mother's
India-rubber cloak and her own, and fled out-of-doors, to be ready on
the beach with the wrap, against their landing. She met the other ladies
on the stairs and in the hall, and they clamored at her; but she glided
through them like something in a dream, and then she heard a shouting in
her ear, and felt herself caught and held up against the wind.

"Where in land be you goin', Miss Breen?"

Barlow, in a long, yellow oil-skin coat and sou'wester hat, kept pushing
her forward to the edge of the cliff, as he asked.

"I'm going down to meet them!" she screamed.

"Well, I hope you WILL meet 'em. But I guess you better go back to the
house. Hey? WUNT? Well; come along, then, if they ain't past doctorin'
by the time they git ashore! Pretty well wrapped up, any way!" he
roared; and she perceived that she had put on her waterproof and drawn
the hood over her head.

Those steps to the beach had made her giddy when she descended with
leisure for such dismay; but now, with the tempest flattening her
against the stair-case, and her gossamer clutching and clinging to every
surface, and again twisting itself about her limbs, she clambered down
as swiftly and recklessly as Barlow himself, and followed over the beach
beside the men who were pulling a boat down the sand at a run.

"Let me get in!" she screamed. "I wish to go with you!"

"Take hold of the girl, Barlow!" shouted one of the men. "She's crazy."

He tumbled himself with four others into the boat, and they all struck
out together through the froth and swirl of the waves. She tried to free
herself from Barlow, so as to fling the waterproof into the boat. "Take
this, then. She'll be soaked through!"

Barlow broke into a grim laugh. "She won't need it, except for a
windin'-sheet!" he roared. "Don't you see the boat's drivin'