"Well, then," said he, presently, "there ain't any use in making the run to Bermuda. Let's go around to Newport; I'm sick of this hole. I've got to run into town this morning, but I'll be out early, and, if the muck has blown off, we'll start right out." Hermione agreed. Cécile was indifferent, and all places looked alike to Paula and Huntington Wood. And so it was that midnight found the _Shark_ beating out across Massachusetts Bay against a fresh gale from the southeast. Slow she might be, but it had to blow very hard to keep the old schooner from getting to windward, while her great beam and high sides made her comfortable under any weather condition. Rather to Bell's surprise, for he had expected opposition, Heldstrom made no demur about going to sea in what looked like the start of a hard storm. In fact, the old Norwegian seemed impatient to get under way. "Yoost a little vind und r'rain..." said he. "Double r'reef der mainsail." Daylight found the schooner snoring along well off the Cape. It was blowing hard, very hard, and many big fishermen had passed them, flying for the shelter of Provincetown, but so far the only shortening of canvas aboard the _Shark_ was the two reefs in her mainsail. "It does not look very goot," Heldstrom observed to Bell, who relieved him to take the morning watch. "Der fishermen are all getting in out of it." "It's blowin' too hard to fish," said Bell, "but it's a fine breeze for a sail. This is just our meat. I'll keep on standin' out on this leg so's to make a reach of it into The Vineyard. It's clear enough." Heldstrom went below, and Bell, toward the end of his watch, deciding that he was far enough to windward to make a good slant of it into Nantucket Sound, gave the order, "Ready about," and a minute later, when the scant crew had scrambled aft to trim the mainsheet and one hand was standing by to hold the forestaysail aback, Bell turned and made a circular motion with his hand to the quartermaster at the wheel. "Hard-a-lee...!" he bawled, in his fat, husky voice. The schooner was by this time in a very nasty, choppy sea-way, the tide setting her strongly against the hard southeaster and the water all about combing and frothing almost like a tide-rip. The old yacht was plunging heavily, and altogether the conditions for bringing her smartly about were far from favourable. To begin with, every pitch of her bluff bows checked her headway; again, the three reefs in her mainsail gave her a bit of a lee helm, while the watch was not strong enough to trim her mainsheet smartly, but merely gathered in the slack of it as she swung up to meet the wind. But, worst of all, the hand who was holding the forestaysail aback let it get away from him just as the sail was about to fill and swing the schooner's head. And so it befell that the schooner missed her stays.