"That is a subject I don't want to talk about. We'll go up and see what the weather's like." Carroll shivered when they stood in the well. A nipping wind came down across the darkening firs ashore, but there was no doubt that it had fallen somewhat, and he resigned himself when Vane began to pull the tiers off the mainsail. In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out towards open water with two reefs down in her mainsail; a great and ghostly shape of slanted canvas that swept across the dim, furrowed plain of sea. By midnight the breeze was as strong as ever, but they had clear moonlight and they held on; the craft plunging with flooded decks through the white combers, while Carroll sat at the helm, battered by spray and stung with cold. When Vane came up an hour or two later, the sea was breaking viciously. They held on and, soon after day broke with its first red flush ominously high in the eastern sky, stretched in towards the land, with a somewhat sheltered bay opening up beyond a foam-fringed point ahead of them. Carroll glanced dubiously at the white turmoil, in the midst of which black fangs of rock appeared, before he turned to his companion. "Will she weather the point on this tack?" he asked. "She'll have to," said Vane, who was steering. They stood on, though it occurred to Carroll that they were not opening up the bay very rapidly. The light was growing, and he could now discern the orderly phalanxes of white-topped combers that crumpled into chaotic spouting on the point's outer end. The sloop would not last long if she touched bottom there; but once more, after a glance at his companion's face, he kept silent. After all, Vane was leader, and when he looked as he did then he usually resented advice. The mouth of the bay grew wider, until Carroll could see most of the forest-girt shore on one side of it; but the surf upon the point was also growing unpleasantly near. Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going to windward, for Vane was handling her with skill, and she had almost cleared the point when there was a bang, and the sloop stopped suddenly. The comber to windward that should have lifted her up broke all over her; flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight, and pouring inches deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller and cut his forehead, for his wet face was smeared with blood, but he had seized a big oar to shove her off when she swung upright, moved, and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was another less violent crash, and while Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm she suddenly shot ahead. "She'll go clear," he shouted, "Jump below and see if she's damaged." Carroll got no farther than the scuttle, for the saloon floorings on the depressed side were already awash and he could hear an ominous splashing and gurgling.