and this?"

"She can, if it's no worse, sir." "But it looks heavier weather
outside."

"As well as I can see, it's only beginnin'."

Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the calm and measured
sentiment of the sailor, who, fully conscious of all the danger, yet
never, by a word or gesture, showed that he was flurried or excited.

"You have been out on nights as bad as this, I suppose?" said Harcourt.

"Maybe not quite, sir, for it's a great say is runnin'; and, with the
wind off shore, we could n't have this, if there was n't a storm blowing
farther out."

"From the westward, you mean?"

"Yes, sir,--a wind coming over the whole ocean, that will soon meet the
land wind."

"And does that often happen?"

The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a cannon-shot, the
wind reversed the sail, snapping the strong sprit in two, and bringing
down the whole canvas clattering into the boat. With the aid of a
hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and
soon cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail,
labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course,
too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the
great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to
them.

"The boy!--the boy!" cried Harcourt; "what has become of him? He never
could have lived through that squall."

"If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too," said the sailor;
"she'd have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter."

"It is all over by this time," muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully.

"Pace to him now!" said the sailor, as he crossed himself, and went over
a prayer.

The wind now raged fearfully; claps, like the report of cannon, struck
the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly keel uppermost; while
the mast bent like a whip, and every rope creaked and strained to its
last endurance. The deafening noise close at hand told where the waves
were beating on the rock-bound coast, or surging with the deep growl
of thunder through many a cavern. They rarely spoke, save when some
emergency called for a word. Each sat wrapped up in his own dark
reveries, and unwilling to break them. Hours passed thus,--long, dreary
hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so often in this
interval did life hang in the balance.

As morning began to break with a grayish blue light to the westward,
the wind slightly aba