"Look here!" cried Captain Brisco. "You are the owner of this schooner, it is true, and as such you are my superior, but the law gives me supreme command of this craft at sea, unless I'm dead, or otherwise deposed. And I tell you I won't risk all these lives by trying to beat back in the teeth of this wind, to pick up a motorboat. It would be worse than criminal--worse than wicked to do it. It would endanger all on board!" There was some logic in that. Even Mr. Pertell, exercised as he was by the threatened danger to Russ, could appreciate that. "But we must do something," the manager repeated. "I'm doing all I can," Captain Brisco replied. "I'll shorten sail down to the minimum; that will keep us before the wind, and out of the trough of the sea! More I can't do. We must depend on them to pick us up. They ought to be able to do it. You told me Dalwood could manage a boat." "So he can--but--" There was ominous meaning in the broken-off sentence. "Well, we'll do the best we can," concluded Captain Brisco. "They will have to take chances, as we're doing." He went forward to give some orders. Those aboard the schooner peered anxiously over the storm swept waters for a sight of the motor craft, but they saw nothing. They shouted and called, but only the wind howled back at them. Then, with a suddenness that was appalling, they seemed to be flung into the midst of a hurricane. The wind lashed the sea to fury, and the _Mary Ellen_ spun around like some gigantic top. "We're in the vortex!" cried Jack Jepson. "We're in the vortex of a cyclone! All hands look to themselves!" CHAPTER XXI WRECKED Confusion on board a ship in a storm may be real confusion and riot, or it may only seem so to those not used to the sea. Often what is a hopelessly tangled mass of sails, ropes, spars and gears to the landsman, is as clear to a sailor as a skein of yarn is to an experienced knitter, who can ply her needles in the dark. It was so on the _Mary Ellen_ when the storm, that had been so long threatening, and half-performing, broke in all its fury. There was a tangle of ropes, a banging and slamming of canvas, which, stretched taut and to its utmost, was as stiff as a board. There was a rattling of blocks and the creaking of the boom-crotches against the masts. The squeak of the gaffs higher up added to the din. The shouting of Captain Brisco, and the answering calls of his men did not lessen the confusion. "Lower away! Lower away!" the commander cried, ordering even the already doubly-reefed sails gotten down, so the powerful wind would have less resistance. Even with the small area of canvas shown, the craft was being heeled over until the scuppers--or the holes by which water runs off the deck--dipped under the waves, and there was plenty of sea aboard.