With the breaking of the next roller the captain uttered no sound. The situation was too grave for explosives. Whenever his profanity stopped short the men grew nervous: they knew then that a crisis had arrived, one that even Captain Joe feared. The captain bent over the chain, one arm clinging to the anchorage, his feet braced against a rock, the hook in his hand within an inch of the ring. “_Hold hard!_” he shouted. Caleb raised his hand in warning, and the rhythmic movement ceased. The men stood still. Every eye was fixed on the captain. “LET GO!” The big derrick quivered for an instant as the line slackened, stood still, and a slight shiver ran through the guys. The hook had slipped into the ring! The system of four derricks, with all their guys and chains, stood as taut and firm as a suspension bridge! Captain Joe turned his head calmly towards the platform, and said quietly, “There, Mr. Carleton, they’ll stand now till hell freezes over.” * * * * * As the cheering of the men subsided, the captain, squeezing the water from his hair and beard with a quick rasp of his fingers, sprang to Sanford’s rock, grasped his outstretched hand, shook it heartily, and called to Caleb, in a firm, cheery voice that had not a trace of fatigue in it after twelve hours of battling with sea and derricks, “All o’ you men what’s goin’ in the Screamer with Mr. Carleton to Keyport for Sunday ’d better look out for that life-boat. Come, Lonny Bowles, pick up them tackles an’ git to the shanty. It’ll be awful soapy round here ’fore mornin’.” CHAPTER IX WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW Caleb sat on the deck of the Screamer on her homeward run, his face turned toward Keyport Light, beyond which his little cabin lay. His eyes glistened, and there came a choking in his throat as he thought of meeting Betty. He could even feel her hand slipped into his, and could hear the very tones of her cheery welcome, when she met him at the gate and they walked together up the garden path to the porch. Most of the men who had stood to the watch-tackles in the rolling surf sat beside him on the sloop. Those who were still wet, including Sanford, had gone below into the cabin, out of the cutting wind. Those who, like Caleb, had changed their clothes, sat on the after deck. Captain Joe, against Sanford’s earnest protest, had remained on the Ledge for the night. He wanted, he said, to see how the derricks would stand the coming storm.