The third day sundry signs betokening a storm lent an anxious expression to Duff's face, that soon transferred itself to Ralph's. The wind stiffened gradually into half a gale and night closed in, around an ominous and threatening horizon. Though worn and wearied, the mate never gave up the tiller all during that black and perilous siege of darkness. Ralph bailed and held the main sheet. When the squalls came he slackened up or drew in around the cleat as became necessary. The scene was intensely depressing, hopeless, terrible. Hardly a word was spoken save in reference to the management of the boat. Morning found them greatly exhausted and barely able to keep their small craft from broaching to. Had this happened they would have foundered undoubtedly. The clouds seemed to press the ocean, confining the view to less than half a mile in any direction. The sea was a tumbling mass of gray, seething billows, that tossed the yawl at pleasure hither and thither, the rag of sail barely sufficing to keep her head to windward. Ralph had endured the terrors of the night without a murmur. But he had been aboard the yawl now about five days on a diet of bread and water. Nature was giving way under the strain. As he gazed around on the angry scene, where no sign of relenting on the part of the storm was evident, he turned to Duff and fixed on him a hopeless look. "I don't think I can stand it much longer, sir," he said. The mate's plight was almost as bad; indeed his wound was worse than Ralph's. But he was tougher; he had been shipwrecked twice previously. "Lad," he replied, somewhat sternly, "never give up as long as you can bat an eye. That's my doctrine." And he looked it; so did Ralph a moment later, nor did the boy complain again. All that weary day they fought a losing battle against wind and wave, and when night once more closed in without any sign of clearing weather, the hearts of both were at the lowest ebb of hope. Had the gale increased they must inevitably have been swamped. Along about two bells in the first night watch the mate, who had never uttered one word of complaint, groaned aloud. "Give--me--water," he faltered. "I--I----" And he sank forward against Ralph, and from there to the boat's bottom, where he lay apparently insensible from exhaustion and pain. The boy seized the tiller, or the yawl, broaching, would have shipped a fatal sea. There was nothing to do but to hold to his post; so after throwing a blanket over Duff he turned his attention to the boat, keeping the shred of sail taut, and the bow as much to windward as possible.