The next wave caught her on the quarter and slopped a barrel of water into her. But she kept right side up, and in a few moments the cable straightened and she rode head into the tumult of the ocean; the sea-anchor was dragging and performing its service. Mayo was obliged to kick the two men with considerable heartiness before he could stir them to bailing with the buckets. The bedraggled cat fled to the shelter of the girl's arms. Mayo struggled aft, in order to take his weight from the bow of the boat, and when he sat down beside the girl she was “mothering” the animal. “It's coming in faster than I can throw it out!” wailed Bradish. “Bail faster, then! Bail or drown!” “She's leaking,” announced the cook. “She has been on deck so long she has got all dried out.” “Bail or drown!” repeated Mayo. To the girl he said: “This seems to be the only way of getting work out of cowards. They'll have to do it. I'm about done for.” The waves were lifting and dropping them in dizzying fashion. There was suddenly a more violent tossing of the water. “That's the old packet! She went under then!” Mayo explained. “Thank the Lord we are out of her clutches! I was afraid we were stuck there.” “Is there any hope for us now?” she inquired. “I don't know. If the boat stays afloat and the wind doesn't haul and knock this sea crossways, if somebody sees us in the morning, if we don't get rolled onto the coast in the breakers and--” He did not finish. “It seems that a lot of things can happen at sea,” she suggested. “That fact has been proved to me in the past few weeks.” “You mean in the past few hours, don't you?” “Miss Marston, what has happened on that schooner is a part of the business, and a sailor must take it as it comes along. I wish nothing worse had happened to me than what's happening now.” She made no reply. “But no matter about it,” he said, curtly. The two men, kneeling amidships, clutching a thwart and bailing with their free hands, toiled away; even Bradish had wakened to the fact that he was working for his own salvation. In the obscurity the waves which rose ahead seemed like mountains topped with snow. Hollows and hills of water swept past on their right and left. But the crests of the waves were not breaking, and this fact meant respite from immediate danger. “I'm sorry it was all left to you to do,” ventured the girl, breaking a long silence. “I thought Ralph had more man in him,” she added, bitterly. “I feel that he ought to apologize to you for--for several things.” He, on his part, did not reply to that. He was afraid that she intended to draw him into argument or explanation. Just what he would be able to say to her on that topic was not clear to him. “It seems as if years had gone by instead of hours. It seems as if I had lived half a life since I left home. It seems as if I had changed my nature and had grown up to see things in a different light. It is all very strange to me.”