In one lay the little schooner at anchor, and all ship-shape to meet the coming tempest, and there, too, was his surf-skiff with a couple of boats drawn up on the beach. The entrance to this bay was winding and dangerous in the extreme, but these very dangers of running in and out made it more sheltered and secure as a harbor. The bay upon the other side of the cliff was larger and by no means well sheltered from a wild sea, though to an ordinary observer it appeared to be a safe anchorage for a vessel. The lad stood upon a rock overhanging the sea, and commanding a grand view, seemingly unconscious that a false step would hurl him into the waters eighty feet below. Suddenly he started, for around a point of land heavily wooded a vessel came in sight, driving along under reefed sails before the breeze which was the forerunner of the storm. “It is one of those beautiful yachts out of Boston; but there can be no pilot on board, or he would have run into Rover’s Roost. “Why does she not stand out to sea for good room?” said the lad anxiously. Then he watched the vessel attentively, a large schooner yacht of some two hundred tons burden, painted white, which was driving along like a huge thing of life seeking a place of refuge from the storm. “Great Cæsar’s ghost! she is running into Hopeless Haven in the very teeth of this storm. She will be wrecked!” and the boy’s voice now rang out in dire alarm for the safety of the beautiful vessel. He saw her run, to what her skipper evidently believed a safe anchorage; the anchors were let fall and the sails furled. Then Mark Merrill waited no longer, for from his lips came the words: “She is doomed unless I can save her! I have no time to get my boat and run around the point, for the storm would catch me halfway--yes, I must take the chances and swim out to her!” He paused for a few seconds, as though taking in the whole situation, and then quickly ran around the edge of the cliff to where there was a small arbor, in the top of which had been a beacon in the early days of the mansion. Quickly divesting himself of his jacket, shoes, stockings and hat, he began to descend the steep side of the cliff with the agility of a cat. He reached within twenty feet of the water’s edge, and turning, gazed first out at the yacht, half a mile distant, and then down into the surf, dashing with thunderous roar against the base of the cliff. “Now for it!” and as the words left his lips Mark Merrill made the fateful spring into the surging breakers on his daring swim out to the yacht in the face of the coming storm. CHAPTER VI. THE BOY PILOT. The schooner yacht Midshipman was on a pleasure cruise of several weeks with a distinguished party on board. She was a large, roomy and stanch craft, as well as carrying the champion colors as a racer, won in showing a clean pair of heels to the fleet pleasure boats when a cup or purse was at stake.