"All right," the mate replied. "Scared a bit, I fancy. I know I am myself, but none the worse for it." "It is coming now, sir," the captain said. "Listen." Frank could hear a low moaning noise, rapidly growing louder, and then he saw a white line on the water coming along with extraordinary velocity. "Hard down with the helm, Perry," the captain said. "Hard down it is, sir." "Hold on all!" the captain shouted. A few seconds later the gale struck them. The yacht shook as if in a collision, and heeled over till the water was half up her deck. Then the weight of her lead ballast told, and as the pressure on the mizzen did its work, she gradually came up to the wind, getting on to an almost even keel as she did so. "Break out the jib and haul in the weather sheet," the captain shouted. Purvis was expecting this, and although he did not hear the words above the howl of the storm, at once obeyed the order. "There she is, sir, lying-to like a duck," the skipper shouted in Frank's ear; "and none the worse for it. An ordinary craft would have turned turtle, but I have seen her as far over when she has been racing." "Well, I will go below now, Hawkins," Frank shouted back. "It is enough to blow the hair off one's head. "Come down, George, with me. You can be of no use here." Chapter 14. For eight hours the Osprey struggled with the storm. The sea swept over her decks, and the dinghy was smashed into fragments, but the yacht rode with far greater ease than an ordinary vessel would have done, as, save for her bare mast, the wind had no hold upon her. There were no spars with weight of furled sails to catch the wind and hold her down; she was in perfect trim, and her sharp bows met the waves like a wedge, and suffered them to glide past her with scarce a shock, while the added buoyancy gained by reefing the bowsprit and getting the anchors below lifted her over seas that, as they approached, seemed as if they would make a clean sweep over her. From time to time Frank went up for a few minutes, lashing himself to the runner to windward. The three men at the helm were all sitting up, lashed to cleats, and sheltering themselves as far as they could by the bulwarks. Movement toward them was impossible. Beyond a wave of the hand, no communication could be held. Frank could not have ventured out had he not, before going down below for the first time, stretched a rope across the deck in front of the companion, so that before going out he obtained a firm grasp of it, and was by its assistance able to reach the side safely. Each time he went out four of the crew from below followed him and relieved those lashed to the shrouds forward.