to
the skipper's blows; but the skipper, in his frenzy, struck him again
and knocked him to the deck.

Slowly, steadily, Number 25 was responding to her helm. The bow
pointed away, and the beam of the ferry came beside the beam of the
silent steamer; they were very close now, so close that the
searchlight, which had turned to keep on the other vessel, shot above
its shimmering deck and lighted only the spars; and, as the water rose
and fell between them, the ships sucked closer. Number 25 shook with
an effort; it seemed opposing with all the power of its screws some
force fatally drawing it on--opposing with the last resistance before
giving way. Then, as the water fell again, the ferry seemed to slip
and be drawn toward the other vessel; they mounted, side by side ...
crashed ... recoiled ... crashed again. That second crash threw all
who had nothing to hold by, flat upon the deck; then Number 25 moved
by; astern her now the silent steamer vanished in the snow.

Gongs boomed below; through the new confusion and the cries of men,
orders began to become audible. Alan, scrambling to his knees, put an
arm under old Burr, half raising him; the form encircled by his arm
struggled up. The skipper, who had knocked Burr away from the wheel,
ignored him now. The old man, dragging himself up and holding to Alan,
was staring with terror at the snow screen behind which the vessel had
disappeared. His lips moved.

"It was a ship!" he said; he seemed sneaking more to himself than to
Alan.

"Yes"; Alan said. "It was a ship; and you thought--"

"It wasn't there!" the wheelsman cried. "It's--it's been there all the
time all night, and I'd--I'd steered through it ten times, twenty
times, every few minutes; and then--that time it was a ship!"

Alan's excitement grew greater; he seized the old man again. "You
thought it was the _Miwaka_!" Alan exclaimed. "The _Miwaka_! And you
tried to steer through it again."

"The _Miwaka_!" old Burr's lips reiterated the word. "Yes; yes--the
_Miwaka_!"

He struggled, writhing with some agony not physical. Alan tried to
hold him, but now the old man was beside himself with dismay. He broke
away and started aft. The captain's voice recalled Alan to himself, as
he was about to follow, and he turned back to the wheelhouse.

The mate was at the wheel. He shouted to the captain about following
the other ship; neither of them had seen sign of any one aboard it.
"Derelict!" the ski