As they sat at supper that night the blanket which supplied the place of companion-doors began to flap, and, going up to look, he found the mist whirling away before a gusty breeze. "It's going to blow," he told her, "and when it's blown itself out we may have a spell of fine weather again," and he proceeded to block the opening with some planks he had chipped to size as well as he could with his axe. The wind was rising rapidly, and before they turned in for the night the birds had all come in and were whirling and screaming round the ship, and lighting on it as was their custom in bad weather. But they had grown accustomed to their clamour and both slept soundly. Wulf was shaken back to life in the dead of the early morning by a restive jerk of the ship at her rusty anchor-chain, followed by a momentary sense of the unusual. And while he lay sleepily considering the matter, his bunk heeled slowly over--over--over, and rolled him right against the side of the ship. The sound of a heavy fall, somewhere beyond, made him scramble out very wide awake, full of wonder, but dimly perceptive of what must have happened. The rusty chain had evidently parted, the ship had drifted ashore broadside on, and the force of the wind had caused her to heel over. The sound he had heard was, he feared, of Miss Drummond's falling out of her bunk. He flung on some clothes and clawed his way out to the cabin. The floor of it was tilted up at such an angle that he had to claw his way up by the side wall as best he could. "Are you hurt?" he cried, outside The Girl's door. "Bruised a bit. Whatever has happened?" "The cable has parted and we're ashore on our beam-ends. No danger, I think." "I'll be out in a minute." Then he became aware of a smell of burning, and found that the sand hearth with its core of fire had slid downhill and was smouldering among the silken draperies, which were beginning to break into flame. He crawled back and tore them down and bunched them tightly together, then scooped up handfuls of sand and smothered every cinder he could see. Miss Drummond's door opened just as he had finished. "Stop where you are," he cried. "I'll come up for you. Everything's on the slope. I think we'd better sit on the floor and let ourselves down by degrees." Outside, the wild screaming of the birds mingled eerily with the rush and howl of the gale. It was still quite dark. He could not see her, but groped about till he felt her blankets, then found her hand and eased her carefully down the slope, and they crouched side by side in the angle made by the floor and the side of the ship. "Will she go down?" she asked quietly. "Oh, no. No fear of that. We're aground. But whether she'll ever come straight again I don't know. Did it pitch you out of your bunk?" "Yes. I woke with a crash on the floor, and could not imagine what had happened." "I hope you didn't break yourself."