That fight with the storm was a thing men still talk about; they say it was an inhuman and a marvelous thing. Noll stood aft, legs braced, scorning a hand hold. His voice rang through the singing wind to the remotest corner of the _Sally_, and the highest spar. Regardless of wind and sea, he crowded on sail, and brought her around to the course he wished to take, and drove her into it.... Time and time again, during that afternoon and that long night, every sane man aboard thought her very masts must be torn out of her. Three times a sail did go; but Noll would never slacken. On the after deck, he raved like a madman, but his commands were seamanly.... A miracle of seamanship, stark madness.... But madness that succeeded. The _Sally_ drove into the gale, she fought as madly as Noll himself was fighting.... And Noll, aft, screamed through the night and drove them on. Faith never left her post, so near him. No man aboard had sleep that night. No man dared sleep, lest death find him in his dreams. Willis Cox and Tichel came to Noll more than once, beseeching.... But he drove them away. Dan'l never interfered with the captain; it seemed there was a madness on him, too. And Brander and Dan'l Tobey between them were Noll's right hand and his left, driving the men to the tasks Noll set them, holding them sternly in hand.... They could only guess how far they had come through the darkness. An hour before daylight, Dan'l stopped to gasp to Faith: "We're near there, I'm thinking. If we're not nearer the bottom...." Brander took more practical steps; he found Mauger, and set the one-eyed man well forward, and bade him watch and listen for first sign of land. Mauger nodded chucklingly; he gripped a hold on the taut lines, and set his one eye into the darkness, and tuned his ear to the storm.... The wind, by this time, was moderating; even Faith could feel a slackening of the pressure of it that had torn at her garments the night through. She was weak with fighting it; nevertheless she held her post. And the steady thrust of the gale slowly modified and gave way.... The first hints of light showed in the skies.... They caught glimpses of scudding clouds, low overhead.... But the worst was passed; and every man knew it. Noll, still standing like a colossus at his post, knew it; and he shook his fist at the skies and the sea, and he cursed the wind and dared it.... Faith could see him, dimly, in the coming light.... Head bare, eyes frantic, cheeks sunken.... An enormous, but a wasted figure of a man.... The very waters about them were quieting somewhat.... Their nerves and their muscles relaxed; they were straining their eyes to see into the dimness of the coming day....