“She’ll stay like a duck, if the gear only holds,” said Henry Burns. They waited, watching anxiously, till a half-hour had gone by. The yacht was standing it well. The great seas lifted her bows high and dropped her heavily into the deep, black furrows, and the rain and spray drove aboard in clouds. But the yacht held on. “She’ll stay, I think,” said Henry Burns; and added, yawning wearily, “if she don’t, I hope she will let us know right away, for I’ll fall asleep here in the cockpit pretty soon. Oh! but this is hard work. I don’t know but what I’ll quit and dig clams for a living.” “Turn in and take a wink of sleep,” said Harvey. “She’s riding all right. We’ll call you if anything goes wrong.” “Go ahead,” urged Tom and Bob. “I believe I will,” said Henry Burns. “But it won’t be a wink, when I get started. You’ll have hard work to wake me. Let me know, though, when it’s my turn to take the wheel, and give one of you fellows a chance.” With which, Henry Burns, satisfied in his mind that his scheme was working well, went below and fell asleep, unmindful of the bufferings of the seas, the straining of the _Viking’s_ cabin fixtures, and the heavy pitching and tossing that shook the yacht from stem to stern. “Go ahead, one of you,” said Harvey, addressing Tom and Bob. “Two of us can watch, and if we need you we’ll call you.” But they shook their heads. “I’m dead tired,” admitted Bob; “but I couldn’t sleep a wink down in that cabin in this storm. We’ll stick it out till morning, won’t we, Tom?” “I’d rather,” replied Tom. “So would I,” said Harvey. “But that’s just like Henry Burns. When he takes a notion a thing is so, he believes it out-and-out. I honestly believe he thinks he is as safe as he would be on an ocean liner.” Evidently, Henry Burns was satisfied with the situation; and clearly he was a good sleeper. For daybreak found him still wrapped in slumber. Nor did he waken when, the storm abated and the _Viking_ safe at anchor in the harbour at the head of Loon Island, Jack Harvey and the others tumbled below and laid their weary bones beside him. But, to make return for their kindness in not arousing him to help work the boat, he was up before them, and had dinner piping hot when they opened their eyes at noontime. CHAPTER XIV. THE MAN IN THE CABIN The storm that had so suddenly overtaken the _Viking_ had raged over all of Samoset Bay. The yacht _Surprise_, running up before the afternoon southerly, had been becalmed when near the foot of Grand Island, a mile or so out, and had felt the first force of the succeeding nor’easter. But the squall that so nearly inflicted disaster upon the _Viking_ had passed over them. They only knew that the wind changed with startling abruptness, and most capriciously, and that the sea began to roll up from the northeast in an unusually brief time.