ck, and once more got the head of his
vessel round towards the Gull Light, the lanterns of which were seen
faintly gleaming through the murky atmosphere. But it was too late.
The breakers of the North-sand-head were already roaring under their
lee, and also right ahead of them.

"Port! port! hard a-port!" shouted Bax.

"Port it is," replied the steersman, with that calm professional
sing-song tone peculiar to seamen.

At that instant, the schooner struck the sand, passed over the first
line of breakers, and rushed onwards to certain destruction.

"Bring Lucy on deck," cried Bax.

Mr Burton ran below to obey, but the words had scarce been spoken when
Guy Foster entered the cabin, and seizing the trembling girl in his
arms, bore her gently but swiftly to the deck.

Here the scene that met her gaze was truly awful. It seemed as if above
and below there were but one wild chaos of waters over which brooded a
sky of ebony. The schooner had by this time got into the hideous
turmoil of shallow water, the lurid whiteness of which gleamed in the
dark like unearthly light. As yet the vessel was rushing fiercely
through it, the rudder had been carried away by the first shock, and she
could not be steered. Just as Lucy was placed by Bax in a position of
comparative shelter under the lee of the quarter-rails, the "Nancy"
struck a second time with fearful violence; she remained hard and fast
on the sands, and the shock sent her foremast overboard.

If the condition of the little vessel was terrible before, its position
now was beyond description awful. The mad seas, unable to hurl her
onward, broke against her sides with indescribable fury, and poured tons
of water on the deck; so that no one could remain on it. Having
foreseen this, Bax had prepared for it. He had warned all on board to
keep close by the main shrouds, and take to the mast when the schooner
should strike. He himself bore Lucy aloft in his strong arms as if she
had been a little child, and placed her on the main cross-trees. Here
she clung with a convulsive grasp to the main-topmast, while Guy secured
her in her position with a rope.

Sitting down on the cross-trees and holding on to them by his legs--a
matter of no little difficulty, as the vessel was rolling violently from
side to side, Bax began to strip off his thick pilot-coat, intending to
cover the girl with it. But he was arrested by the boy Tommy Bogey.

"Hold on," he shouted into his comm