and the white
foam of "stupendous" breakers angrily lashed the rock-bound shore.

"Will you ride it out?" asked McKay of the captain, as the two stood
with the doctor crouched under the gunwale of the yacht and holding on
to the shrouds.

"Why shouldn't we?" replied Trejago, shortly, as though the question
was an insult to himself and his ship.

"That's more than some can say!" cried the doctor, pointing to one
great ship, the ill-fated _Prince_, which had evidently dragged her
anchors and was drifting perilously towards the cliffs.

"Our tackle is sound and the holding is good," said Trejago,
hopefully. "But we ought not to speak so loud. It may alarm Mrs.
Wilders."

"Does she not know our danger? Some one ought to tell her. You had
better go, McKay."

The aide-de-camp made rather a wry face. He was not fond of Mrs.
Wilders, whose manner, sometimes oily, sometimes supercilious, was too
changeable to please him, and he felt that the woman was not true.

However, he went down to the cabin, where he found Mrs. Wilders, with
a white, scared face, cowering in a corner as she listened to the
howling of the storm.

"Is there anything the matter?" she cried, springing up as he
appeared. "Is there any danger?"

"I trust not; still, it is well to be prepared."

"For what? Do you mean that we may be lost, drowned--here, in sight of
port--all of us--my dear general and myself? It is too dreadful! Why
does not the captain run inside the harbour and put us on dry ground?"

"I fear it would be too great a risk to try and make the mouth of the
harbour in this gale."

"Then why don't you seek help from some of the other ships--the
men-of-war? There are plenty of them all around."

"Every ship outside Balaclava is in the same stress as ourselves. They
could spare us no help, even if we asked for it."

"What, then, are we to do?--in Heaven's name!"

"Trust in Providence and hope for the best! But I think--if I might
suggest--it would be as well to keep the general in ignorance of our
condition, which is not so very desperate after all."

"How do you mean?"

"'Our cables are stout,' Captain Trejago says, and we ought to be able
to ride out the storm."

And the _Arcadia_ did so gallantly all that day, in the teeth of the
hurricane, which blew with unabated fury for many more hours, and in
spite of the tempest-torn sea, which now ran mountains high.

All through that anxious day Trejago kept the deck, watching the s