He had three dangers to face--the ever-present terror of being overtaken by the following sea, the likelihood of being dashed against a hidden coast in the black night, and the chance of being run down by some merchantman or man-o'-war, threshing through the dark. Suddenly the cabin hatch snapped open and shut again. "Betty!" "I'm going to stay with you." "Go back." "No. See, I'm wrapped up splendidly. And here are oilskins for you." Indeed, a quaint figure she made of it, in a rain-coat miles too big for her slender body, and a sou'wester hat, somewhere discovered, fairly engulfing her little head. For the first time that night, he laughed boyishly. "You dear child! You mustn't stay, though." "Put these on, Bob White. Perhaps you'll get dry underneath." Still keeping a controlling hand on the wheel, he managed with Betty's help to encase himself in the fisherman's oilskins she had found. "Now, then," he said, "you must go in." For answer, she seated herself beside him. "No, I want to stay here. I'm afraid to be alone in there--with you out here, and the dreadful black water all about." "I thought you weren't afraid of anything." "I'm going to stay." "You can't, Betty. I order you to go in." "I won't go." "Betty," he cried in despair, "it will be better for me if you're out of the way. Don't you see?" "No-o, I don't." "You'll be safer." "You know I won't. You're only trying to make me comfortable, while you are left out here in the cold and wet. Let me stay. If--if we must be drowned, I want to be near you, Bob White--please." There was no resisting this appeal. A thrill of pity went through him as he looked down at the slight form crouching under the all-too-low gunwale. She should not die if he could prevent it. "Can you see the compass?" he asked. "How are we heading?" She rubbed a little of the brine from the binnacle-glass. "Yes; now I see it. North is where that mark is, isn't it? Oh, I know--southwest by south." "What? Look again." "That's right. Sou'west by sou'." "Then the wind is shifting to the northeast. Betty, we're headed for Cape Hatteras." The dread name apparently produced no alarm in the girl's mind. "I've always wanted to be in a storm off Hatteras." "Well, you're likely to have your wish before morning, if this gale keeps up." "If we reach Cape Hatteras in the dark like this--abruptly--what will happen?" "I fancy we'll hurt Cape Hatteras's feelings." "Oh!" After a silence, he felt her hand touch his arm as if she needed comfort. "Poor little girl," he said. "Don't worry. I won't let anything hurt you." "I know. I'm--all right," "There's plenty of ocean about Hatteras," he went on, rather to reassure her than because of his belief in what he said. "We may not get near the land. Even if we do, Pamlico Sound is just behind it--there's only a sort of stretched-out island between the sound and the ocean. We might slip right through an inlet into the Sunny South."