hy any more. The' don't seem
to be any danger of her sailin' off, but that's no sign she can't be
blowed over onto her beam ends and sunk with all on board. If you was
to ask me, Mr. Cleggett, I'd say the time had come to leave the Jasper
B."

The anxiety depicted on the faces of the little circle about him might
have communicated itself to a less intrepid nature. The old Cap'n
himself was no coward. Indeed, in owning to his alarm he had really
done a brave thing, since few have the moral courage to proclaim
themselves afraid. But Cleggett was a man of iron. Although the
tempest smote the hulk with blow after blow, although both earth and
water seemed to lie prostrate and trampled beneath its unappeasable
fury, Cleggett had no thought of yielding.

Unconsciously he drew himself up. It seemed to his crew that he
actually gained in girth and height. The soul, in certain great
moments, seems to have power to expand the body and inform it with the
quality of immortality; Ajax, in his magnificent gesture of defiance,
is all spirit. Cleggett, with his hand on his hip, uttered these
words, not without their sublimity:

"Whether the Jasper B. sinks or swims, her commander will share her
fate. I stay by my ship!"

CHAPTER XV

NIGHT, TEMPEST, LOVE AND BATTLE

And, indeed, if Cleggett had been of a mind to abandon the vessel, he
could scarcely have done so now. For his words were no more than
uttered when the sharp racket of a volley of pistol shots ripped its
way through the low-pitched roaring of the wind.

Loge had chosen the height of the storm to mask his approach. He
attacked with the tempest.

Without a word Cleggett put out the light in the cabin. His men
grasped their weapons and followed him to the deck. A flash of
lightning showed him, through the driving rain, the enemy rushing
towards the Jasper B., pistol in hand. They were scarcely sixty yards
away, and were firing as they came. Loge, a revolver in one hand, and
Cleggett's own sword cane in the other, was leading the rush. Besides
their firearms, each of Loge's men carried a wicked-looking machete.

"Fire!" shouted Cleggett. "Let them have it, men!" And the rifles
blazed from the deck of the Jasper B. in a crashing volley. Instantly
the world was dark again; it was impossible to determine whether the
fire of the Jasper B. had taken effect.

"To the starboard bulwark," cried Cleggett, "and give them hell with
the next lightning fla