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GEOFFREY HAMPSTEAD.

CHAPTER IX.

  NOTHING tends to convince us of the element of chance in our lives more than noticing the consequences of whims. We act and react upon each other, after joining in a movement, till its origin is forgotten and lost. A politician conceives a whim to dazzle a fighting people with a war and the circumstances of thousands are unexpectedly and irretrievably altered. We map out our lives for ourselves and propose to adhere to the chart, but on considering the effects of chance, one's life often seems like an island upheaved from the sea, on which the soil, according to its character, fructifies or refuses the seeds that birds and breezes accidentally bring.

  Our yachting cruise seemed to be like this. One evening when Nina was dining at the Dusenalls', Charley had proposed the trip in an idle sort of way, Nina fastened on the idea, and during little talks with Mrs. Dusenall, induced her to see that it might be advantageous for her daughters to make a reality of the vague proposal.

  In thus providing opportunity for sweet temptation, Nina was not deceiving herself so much as formerly, she knew that her feeling for Geoffrey was deep and strong. But she would morally bind herself to the rigging and sail on without trouble while she listened to the song as well. Would not Jack be with her always to serve as a safeguard? Dear Jack! So fond of Jack! Of course it would be all right. And then, to be with Geoffrey all the time for two or three weeks! or, if not with him, near enough to hear his voice! After all, she could not be any more in love with him than she was then. Where was the harm?

  Margaret's presence on the yacht, if at times rather trying, would certainly make an opening for excitement, and, on the whole, it would be more comfortable to have both Geoffrey and Margaret on the yacht than to leave them in Toronto together. This friendship between them — what did it amount to? She had a desire to know all about it — as we painfully pull the cot off a hurt finger, just to see how it looks.

  For Geoffrey the trip promised to be interesting, and, having in the early days examined Cupid's armory with some curiosity, he tried to persuade himself that the archer's shafts were for him neither very keen nor very formidable. As Davidge used to say, "too much familiarity breeds despisery," and up to this time of his life it had not seemed possible for him to care for any one very devotedly — not even himself. Yet Margaret Mackintosh, he thought, was the one woman who could be permanently trusted with his precious future. No one less valuable could be the making of him. He agreed with the Frenchman in saying that "of all heavy bodies, the heaviest is the woman we have ceased to love," and he hoped when married to be able to feel some of that respect and trust which make things different from the ordinary French experience. But when he thought of Margaret as his wife the thought was vague, and not so full of purpose as some of his other schemes. The mental picture of Margaret sitting near him by the fireside keeping up a bright chatter, or else playing Beethoven to him, the music sounding at its best through the puff-puff of a contemplative pipe, had not altogether dulled his appreciation of those pleasures of the chase, as he called them, over which be had wasted so much of his time. Moreover, he felt that it was altogether a toss-up whether she would accept him or not, and that he did not appeal to her quite in the same way that he did to other women. This threw his hand out. If he wished her to marry him at any time, he thought he would have to put his best foot foremost, and tread lightly where the way seemed so precarious. He knew that she liked him very much as she would a work of art. It was a good thing to have a tall figure and clean-cut limbs, but it seemed almost pathetic to be ranked, as it were, with old china, no matter how full of soul the willow-pattern might be.

  Now that Nina had fairly commenced the yachting cruise, she could be pleasant and jolly with Jack on board the boat, but when it came to leaving the ball-room at the Arlington for a little promenade with him on the verandas, the idea seemed slow and uninviting, After dance, Jack moved away with her, intending to saunter out through one of the low windows.

  "Don't you think it is pleasanter in here?" she said.

  "Well, I find it a little warm here, don't you? Besides the moon is shining outside, and we can get a fine view of the lake from the end of the walk."

  "But, my dear Jack, have we not been enjoying a fine view of the lake all day? You see I don't want every person to think that we can not be content unless we are mooning off together in some dark corner. It does not look well; now, does it?"

  Jack raised his eyebrows. "I did not think you were so very careful of Mrs. Grundy. When did you turn over the new leaf? I suppose the idea did not occur to you that being out with Geoffrey for two or three dances might also excite comment."

  Nina had already surveyed the lake to some extent during the evening under pleasing auspices, but she did not like being reminded of it, and answered hotly:

  "How, then, do you expect me to enjoy going to look at the lake again? I have seen the lake three times already this evening, and no person has made me feel that there was any great romance in the surroundings. Surely you don't think that you would conjure up the romance, do you?"

  "Evidently I would not be able to do that for you," said Jack slowly, while he thought how different her feelings were from his own. It galled him to have it placed before him how stale he had become to her. He conquered his rising anger, and said:

  "I am afraid that our engagement had become very prosaic to you."

  "Horribly so," said Nina. "It all seems just as if we were married. Not quite so bad, though, because I suppose I would then have to be civil. What a bore! Fancy having to be civil continually!"

  "I believe that a fair amount of civility is considered ——"

  "Oh, you need not tell me what our married life will be. I know all about it. Mutual resignation and endearing nothings. Church on Sundays; wash on Mondays. It will be respectable and meritorious and virtuous and generally unbearable ——"

  "Hush, hush, Nina! Why do you talk in this strain? Why do you go out of your way to say unkind things? I know you do not mean a quarter of what you say. If I thought you did I ——"

  "Was I saying unkind things?" interrupted Nina. "I did not think of their being unkind. It seems natural enough to look at things in this way."

  She was endeavoring now to neutralize her hasty words by softer tones, and she only made matters worse. It is difficult to climb clear of the consciousness of our own necessities when it envelops us like a fog, obscuring the path. In some way a good deal of what she said to Jack now seemed tinged with the wrong color, and out of the effort to be pleasant had begun to grow a distaste for his presence. Much as she still liked him, she always tried during this cruise to get into the boat or into the party where Jack was not.

  It had been his own proposal that she should see a good deal of Hampstead, and so it never occurred to him to be more jealous; and afterward she became more crafty in blinding his eyes to the real cause of the dissatisfaction she now expressed. While in Jack's presence her manner toward Geoffrey was studiously off-hand and friendly. Whatever her manner might be when they strolled off together, it was certain that an understanding existed between the two to conceal from Jack whatever interest they might have in one another. She was forced to think continuously of Geoffrey so that every other train of thought sank into insignificance, and was crowded out. A colder person, with temptation infinitely less, would have done what was right and would have captured the world's approbation. It would do harm to examine too closely the natures of many saints of pious memory and to be obliged to paint out their accustomed halo. If the convicted are ever more richly endowed than the social arbiters, they are different and not understood, and therefore judged. No sin is so great as that which we ourselves are not tempted to commit. Ignorance either deifies or spits upon what can not be understood. But, after all, we must have some standard, some social tribunal; and social wrong, no matter how it is looked at, must be prevented, no matter how well we understand that some are, as regards social law, made crooked.

  But let us hasten more slowly.

  Sunday morning, strangely enough, followed the Saturday night which had been spent at the Arlington. The daylight of Sunday followed about two hours after the last man coaxed himself to his berth from the yacht's deck and the tempting night. When all the others were fairly off in a solid sleep, as if wound up for twenty-four hours, one individual arrived at partial consciousness and wondered where he was. A sensation of pleasure pervaded him. Something new and enjoyable lay before him, but he could not make up his mind what it was. That he was not in 173 Tremaine Buildines seemed certain. If not there, where was he? To fully consider the matter he sat up in his berth and gave his head a thump on a beam overhead, which conveyed some intelligence to him. Then, lying back on the pillow, he laughed and rubbed his poll. "A lubber's mistake," quoth he; and then, after a little, "I wonder what it's like outside?" A lanky figure in a long white garment was presently to be seen stumbling up the companion-way, and a head appeared above the deck with hair disheveled looking like a sleepy bird of prey. All around it was so still that nothing could be heard but some one snoring down below. The yacht lay with her anchor-chain nowhere — a thread would have held her in position. The boats behind were lying motionless with their bows under the yacht's counter, drawn up there by the weight of their own painters lying in the water. Maurice gazed about the little wharf-surrounded harbor with curiosity and artistic pleasure. It could only have been this and the feeling of gladness in him that made him interested in the lumber-piles and railway-derricks about him, but it was all so new and strange to him. "Gad! to be off like this, on a yacht, and to live on board, you know!" said he, talking to himself, as he hoisted himself up by his arms and sat on the top of the sliding hatchway. He moved away soon after sitting down, because of about half an inch of cold dew on the hatch. This awakened him completely. He walked gingerly toward the stern and looked at the blaze of red and gold in the eastern sky where the sun was making a triumphal entry. Then he walked to the bow and watched the light gild the masts of the lumber-schooners and the fog-bank over the lake, and the carcass of a drowned dog floating close at hand. He saw bits of the shore beyond the town and wanted to go there. He wanted to inspect the little squat light-house that shone in its reflected glory better than it, ever shone at night. Yes, he must see all these things. It was all fairyland to him. The gig was carefully pulled alongside when, happy thought! a smoke would be just the thing. The weird figure dived down for pipe, matches, and "'baccy," and soon came up smiling. "Never knew anything so quiet as this," he said, as he filled the pipe. The snore below seemed to be the only note typical of the scene — not very musical, perhaps, but eloquent and artistically correct.

  He had not gone far in the gig when he came across the picturesque drowned dog. Really it would be too bad to allow this to remain where it was, even though gilded. The sun would get up higher, and then there would be no poetry about it, but only plain dog. So he went back to the deck and saw a boat-hook. That would do well, enough to remove the eyesore with, but how could he row and hold the boat-hook at the same time? If he only had a bit of string, now, or a piece of rope! But these articles are not to be found on a well-kept deck, and it would not be right to wake up anybody. Happy thought! He took the pike-pole and rowed rapidly toward the dog, and, as he passed it, dropped the oars and grabbed the dog with the end of the pike-pole. His idea was that the momentum of the boat would, by repeated efforts, remove the dog. But the deceased was not to be coaxed in this way from the little harbor where he had so peacefully floated for four weeks. So Maurice, after suffering in the contest, went on board again. Still the snore below went on, and still nobody got up to help him. He searched the deck for any part of the rigging that would suit him, determined to cut away as much as he wanted of whatever came first. Ah! the signal halyards! He soon had about two hundred feet unrove, little recking of the man who had to "shin up" to the topmast-head to reeve the line again. The dog must go. That Margaret's eyes should not be insulted was so settled in his chivalrous little head that — well, in fact, the dog would have to go, and, if not by hook or by crook, he finally went lassoed a good two hundred feet behind, Rankin rowing lustily.

  After this object had been committed to the deep, a seagull came and lighted on a floating plank to consider the situation, and gave a cry that could be heard a vast distance. Maurice rowed out about half a mile into the lake, and then could be seen a lithe figure diving in over the side of the boat and disporting itself, which uttered cries like a peacock when it came to the surface, an interested the lethargic seagulls.

  While he was doing this the fog bank slowly moved in from the lake and enveloped him, so that he began to wonder where the shore was. He got into the boat, without taking, the trouble to don his garment, and rowed toward the place where he thought the shore was. Half an hour's rowing brought him back to some driftwood which he had noticed before, so he gave up rowing in circles, put on the garment, settled himself in the stern-sheets, and lit a pipe. The air was warm, and a gentle motion in the lake rocked him comfortably, until a voice aroused him that might have been a hundred yards or two miles off.

  "Ahoy!" came over the water.

  "Ahoy yourself," called Rankin.

  Jack had got up, and, having missed the gig, had come to the end of the wharf in his basswood canoe, which the Ideal also carried in this cruise.

  "By Jove," thought Jack, "I believe that's Morry out there in the fog; he will never get back as long as he can not see the shore."

  "Ahoy there," he called again.

  "Ahoy yourself," came back in a tone of indifference.

  "Where are you?"

  "Never you mind."

  "Who is out there with you?"

  "The gulls," answered Maurice, as he smiled to himself.

  Jack did not quite hear him. "The Gull?" thought he. "Surely not! Why, he must be at least three miles off."

  "Do you mean the Gull Light?" he called.

  "Ya-as. What's the matter with you any way?

  They were so far apart that their voices sounded to each other as if they came through a telephone.

  At this time the fog had lifted from Maurice, and he lay basking in the sun, perfectly content with everything, while Jack, still enveloped in fog, was feeling quite envious about him. He paddled quickly back to the yacht and got a pocket compass, and with this in the bottom the canoe steered sou'-sou'west until he got out of the fog, and discovered the gig floating high up at the bow and low down aft, puffing smoke and drifting up the lake before an easterly breeze and looking in the distance rather like a steam-barge.

  "Is that the costume you go cruising in?" asked Jack as he drew near.

  "This is the latest fashion, Mother Hubbard gown, don't you know!" said Maurice, as he viewed his spindle calves with satisfaction. "Look at that for a leg," he cried, as he waved a pipe-stem in the air. "No discount on that leg."

  "Nor anything else," growled Jack. "What do you mean by going off this way with the ship's boats?"

  "Not piracy, is it?" asked Morry.

  "Don't know," said Jack, "but I am going to arrest you for being a dissolute, naked vagrant, without visible means of support, and I shall take you to the, place whence you came and ——"

  "Bet you half a dollar you don't. I'm on the high seas, so 'get out of me nar-east coorse,' or by the holy poker I'll sink you."

  Jack came along to tie the gig's painter to his canoe and thus take it into custody. Then a splashing match followed, during which Jack got hold of the rope and began to paddle away. This was but a temporary advantage. A wild figure leaped from the gig and lit on the gunwale of the canoe, causing confusion in the enemy's fleet. Jack bad just time to grab his compass when he was shot out into the "drink," as if from a catapult, and when he came to the surface he had to pick up his paddle, while Morry swam back to the gig, proceeding to row about triumphantly, having the enemy swamped and at his mercy. The overturned canoe would barely float Jack, so Rankin made him beg for mercy and promise to make him an eggnog when they reached the yacht. When on board again they slept three hours before anybody thought of getting up.

  As eight o'clock was striking in the town, these two, children thought it was time for everybody to be up. They were spoiling for some kind of devilment. Geoffrey and Charley and others were already awake, and had slipped into shirt and trousers to go away for a morning swim in the lake.

  Jack visited the sleepers with a yell. Mr. Lemons, another proposed victim of the Dusenalls, still slept peacefully.

  "Now, then, do get up!" cried Jack, in a tone of reproach.

  "Wha's matter?"

  "Get up," yelled Jack.

  "Wha' for?"

  "To wash yourself, man."

  Suppressed laughter was heard from the ladies' cabins.

  "Gor any washstands on board?" still half asleep, but sliding into an old pair of sailing trousers.

  "Washstands? Well, I never! Wouldn't a Turkish bath satisfy you? No, sir! You'll dive off the end of the pier with the others."

  "Not much. Gimme bucket an' piece soap."

  "What! you won't wash yourself?" cried jack, at the top of his voice. "Oh, this is horrible! I say there, aft! you, fellows, come here! Lemons says he won't wash himself."

  At this four or five men ran in and pulled him on deck, where Charley stood with a towel in his hand. No one would give Lemons a chance to explain. They said, "See here, skipper, Lemons won't wash himself."

  Charley's countenance assumed an expression of disgust. "Oh, the dirty swab! Heave him overboard!"

  Lemons broke away then and tried to climb the rigging, but he was caught and carried back, two men at each limb, who showered reproach upon him. The victim was as helpless as a babe in their hands, and was conscious that the ladies had heard everything.

  Charlie rapped on the admiralty skylight and asked for instructions. He declared Lemons would not wash himself, and he asked what should be done with him? In vain the victim cried that the whole thing was a plot. A prompt answer came, with the sound of laughter, from the admiralty that he was to go overboard. This was received with savage satisfaction, and, after three swings backward and forward, Lemon's body was launched into the air and disappeared under the water.

  But Lemons did not come up again. In two or three seconds it occurred to some one to ask whether Lemons could swim. They had taken it for granted that he could. The thought came over them that perhaps by this time he was gone forever. Without waiting further, Geoffrey dived off the wall-sided yacht to grope along the bottom, which was only twelve feet from the surface. He entered the water like a knife, and from the bubbles that rose to the surface it could be seen that a thorough search was being made. Each one took slightly different directions, and went over the side, one after another, like mud-turtles off a log. Between them all, the chance of his remaining drowned upon the bottom was small. Several came up for air, and dived again in another place and met each other below. There was no gamboling now. They were horrified, and looked upon it as a matter of life or death. They dived again and again, until one man came up bleeding at the nose and sick with exhaustion. Geoffrey swam to help him to reach the yacht, when an explosion of laughter was heard on the deck, and there was Lemons, with the laugh entirely on his side. As soon as he had got underneath the surface he had dived deep, and by swimming underwater had come up under the counter, where he waited till all were in the water, and then he came on deck.

  Revenge was never more complete. Lemons was the hero of the hour. The girls thought him splendid, and afterward the sight of eight pairs of trousers and eight shirts drying on the main-boom seemed to do him good.

  Charlie said they ought not to make a laundry clothes-horse of the yacht on Sunday, and proposed to leave Cobourg. Mrs. Dusenall made a slight demur to leaving on Sunday. Jack explained that if it blew hard from the South they could not get out at all without a steam-tug from Port Hope. This seemed a bore — to be locked up, willy-nilly, in harbor — so the yacht was warped to the head of the east pier, where, catching the breeze, she cleared the west pier and headed out into the lake. Outside they found the wind pretty well ahead and increasing, but with sails flattened in, the Ideal lay down to it and clawed up to windward in a way that did their hearts good.

  Some topsails were soon descried far away to windward, showing where two other vessels were also beating down the lake. This gave them something to try for, and when the topmast was housed and all made snug not a great while elapsed before the hulls of the schooners became occasionally visible. The sea was much higher and the motion greater than on the previous day, but the breeze, being ahead, was more refreshing, and nobody felt in danger of being ill after the first hour out. They "came to" under the wooded rocks of Nicholas Island, put in a couple of reefs, for comfort's sake, and "hove to" in calm water to take lunch quietly.

  After lunch, as the yacht paid off on a tack to the southward to weather the Scotch Bonnet Lighthouse, they found, on leaving the shelter of the island, a sea rolling outside large enough to satisfy any of them. One hardly realizes from looking at a small atlas what a nice little jump of a sea Ontario can produce in these parts. The hour lost in mollycoddling for lunch under the island made a difference in the work the yacht had to do. The two schooners, having received another long start, were making good weather of it well to windward of the light, and, when on the tops of waves, their hulls could be seen launching ahead in fine style through the white crests. The yacht's rigging, as she soared to the top of the wave, supplied a musical instrument for the wind to play barbaric tunes upon, which to Jack and some others were inspiring. As she swept down the breezy side of a conquered wave, her rigging sounded a savage challenge to, the next bottle-green-and-white mountain to come on and be cut down.

  Mrs. Dusenall went below and fell asleep in her berth, and some of the others were lying about the after-cabin dozing over books. Nina and the Dusenall girls lay on the sloping deck, propped against the companion-hatch, where they could command the attention of several other people who were sprawled about in the neighborhood of the wheel. Margaret and Rankin persisted in climbing about the slanting decks, changing their positions as new notions about the sailing of the vessel came to them. They seemed so pleased with each other and with everything — exchanging their private little jokes and relishing the odd scraps culled from favorite authors that each brought out in the talk, as old friends can. Maurice made love to her in the openest way — every glance straight into her deep-sea eyes. Not possessing a muscle or a figure, he wooed her with his wits and a certain virtuous boldness that asserted his unmixed admiration and his quaint ideas with some force. And she to him was partly motherly, chiefly sisterly, and partly coquettish, like one who accepts the admiration of half a score before her girlish fancies are gathered into the great egotism of the one who shall reign thrice-crowned. Just look at Geoffrey now, as he nears this schooner, steering the yacht as she comes up behind and to leeward of the big vessel that majestically spurns the waves into half an acre of foam. They tell him he can't weather her, that he'll have to bear away. Now look at his muscular full neck and thick crisp curls. See his jaw grow rigid and his eye flash as he calculates the weight of the wind and the shape of the sea, the set of the sails, and the distances. Obviously, a man to have his way. Objections do not affect him. See how Margaret's eyes sweep quickly from the schooner back to Geoffrey, to watch what he is doing. Why is it when they say he can't do it that it never occurs to her that he won't? She looks at him open-eyed and thoughtful, and thinks it is fine to carry the courage of one's opinions to success, and she smiles as the yacht skillfully evades the main-boom of the schooner and saws up on her windward side.

  The sunrise that Maurice saw early in the morning was too sweet to be wholesome. As the day wore on, the barometer grew unsteady. A leaden scud came flying overhead, and the fellows began to wonder whether they would have to thrash around Long Point all night. A good many opinions were passed on the weather, which certainly did not look promising. Margaret suggested that it would be more comfortable to go into port, but was just as well pleased to hear that they had either to go about forty miles further for a shelter, or else run back to Cobourg. Presque Isle was not spoken of, since it was too shallow and intricate to enter safely at night. Lemons suggested that they should go back and anchor under Nicholas Island, where they had lunched.

  "Might as well look for needle in a hay-stack," said Charley. "It's going to be as black as a pocket when daylight is gone. And if you did get there it is no place to anchor on a night like this."

  Jack did not say anything. He knew that Charley would go on to South Bay, and he looked forward to another night of it round Long Point. The only person who cared much what was done was Mr. Lemons. Towards evening he began to think about the next meal.

  "My dear skipper, how can you ever get a dinner cooked in such a sea as this? The cook will never be able to prepare anything in such a commotion," said he regretfully.

  "Won't he!" exclaimed Charley decisively. "Just wait and see. My men understand that they have to cook if the vessel never gets up off her beam ends."

  "What, you do not mean to say it will be all ——" Mr. Lemons came and laid his head on Charley's shoulder — "that it will be all just as it was yesterday? Oh, say that it will. Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples.'"

  "Get up — off me, you fat lump," cried Charley, pushing him away vehemently. "I say that we will do better to-day, or we'll put the cook in irons. I hate a measly fellow who gives in just when you want him. I have sacked four stewards and six cooks about this very thing, and it is a sore subject with me."

  "De-lightful man," said Lemons, gazing rapturously at Charley.

  "Rankin will tell you," said Jack. "He drew the papers. The whole thing is down in black and white."

  "True enough," said Maurice. "But I don't see how signing papers will teach a man to cook on the side of a stove, when the ship is lying over and pitching like this."

  "No more do I," said Lemons anxiously.

  "Why, man alive!" said Charley, "the whole stove works something like a compass, don't-you-know. He has got it all swinging — slung in irons."

  "That is far better than having the cook in irons," suggested Margaret.

  "Oh!" said Mr. Lemons, as he gazed at the sky, "that remark appeals to me. The lady is correct."

  Then he arose and grasped Charley in a vice-like grip, for though fat he was powerful: He pinned the skipper to the deck and sat upon him.

  "Say, dearest," he cooed into his ear, "at about what hour will this heavenly repast be ready?"

  "Pull him off — somebody!" groaned Charley. "I hate a man that has to be thrown in the water to ——" a thump on the back silenced him.

  "May I convey your commands to the Minister of the Interior," asked his tormentor.

  "Oh, my ribs! Yes. Tell him to begin at it at once."

  "I don't mind if I do," said Mr. Lemons sagaciously; and he disappeared down the companion-way to interview the cook.

  "Ain't he a brick?" said Charley, after Lemons had gone forward. "He's a regular one-er, that chap! Give him his meals on time and he's the gamest old sardine. By the way, let us have a sweepstake on the time we drop anchor in South Bay."

  "We haven't any money in these togs," said Geoffrey.

  "Well, you'll all have to owe it, then. We'll imagine there's a quarter apiece in the pool."

  Margaret wanted to know what was to be done. It was explained that each person had to write his name on a folded paper with the time he thought anchor would be dropped in South Bay. The names were read out afterward. They all, with two exceptions, ranged between one o'clock at night and seven the next morning. The sea was running tremendously high and the wind dead ahead. It was now seven o'clock in the evening and with some thirty-five miles yet to beat to windward. What surprised them all was that Jack had chosen ten o'clock and Charley half-past ten of the same evening. They explained that they had based their ideas on the clouds.

  "If you look carefully," said Jack, "you'll see that close to this lower scud coming from the east, there is a lighter cloud flying out the south and west."

  "I wish, Jack, you had not come on this trip," said Charley. "I could make lots of money if you were not on board."

  Sure enough, the yacht began to point up nearer and nearer to her course, soon after they spoke. Presently she lay her course, with the sheet lightly started, mounting over the head seas like a race-horse, and roaring straight into the oncoming walls of water till it seemed as if her bowsprit would be whipped out. The wind kept veering till at last they had a quarterly breeze driving them forcibly into the seas that had been rising all day. Ordinarily they would have shortened sail to ease the boat, but now that dinner was ordered for half-past nine o'clock, they drove her through it in order that they might dine in calm water.

  They raced past the revolving light on Long Point faster than they had expected to pass it that night. The twenty-five miles run from here was made in darkness and gloom. The boon, was topped up to keep it out of the water, and the peak of the reefed mainsail was dropped, as the increasing gale threatened to bury the bows too much in the head seas. Although early enough in the evening, everything around was, as Charley had predicted, as black as a pocket. Now and then some rain drove over them. Maurice and Margaret sat out together on deck, wrapped in heavy coats, and watched what little they could see. The howling of the wind and roaring of the black surges beneath them were new experiences. Close to them was Jack, standing at the wheel, tooling her through. By the binnacle-light his face, which was about all that could be seen, seemed to be filled with a grave contentment that broke into a grim smile when the boat surged into a wall of water that would have stopped a bluff-bowed craft. Soon after dropping Long Point, he leaned over the hatchway and called down to Charley, who was lying on his back on gay cushions , smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. "Got the Duck Light skip."

  "All right, old boy. Wire in."

  Dusenall turned over his newspaper, but did not take the trouble to come on deck to investigate.

  "Say!" he called.

  "Won't she take the peak again? I've got a terrible twist on me for dinner."

  "No. Bare poles is more what she wants just now," said Jack.

  "The deuce! Who's forrud?"

  "Billy and Joe."

  "All right. Must be damp for 'em up there."

  "Can't see. Guess it's blue water to the knees most of the time."

  "Shouldn't wonder. Do 'em good."

  After this jargon was finished, it did not take long to run down to the False Duck Light. Here the double-reefed mainsail was "squatted" and the fourth reef-pennant hauled down. The reefed staysail was taken in and stowed; and under the peak of the mainsail they jibed over. Steering by the compass, they then rounded to leeward of Timber Island and hauled their wind into South Bay.

  To put the Ideal over so far with so little canvas showing, it must have been blowing a gale. They sped up into the bay close hauled, and "came to" in about four fathoms. Down went the big anchor through the hissing ripples to that best of holding-grounds, and the vessel, drifting back as if for another wild run, suddenly fetched tip with a grind on her iron cable. The mad thing knew that unyielding grip, and swung around submissively.

(End of Chapter IX.)

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