“I—guess so,” Erica said, briefly. “I heard Mr. Peterson, the mate, call it that to Lis a moment ago.” She sat down on the floor, one arm about Milly, bracing both of them with her knees against the door-jamb and her back pressed against the low side of the bunk. “Hold on to me,” she advised, “or we’ll both be black and blue tomorrow.” “If we’re not at the bottom of the sea, you mean,” Milly said, bitterly. They remained on the floor, clinging to each other for what seemed to both girls endless ages. The terrifying violence of the wind seemed to be increasing, and the plunging of the ship grew worse as the hours passed. They did not attempt to leave the cabin to go in search of any of the rest of their party, since it was all they could do to keep themselves from being knocked about, with the chance of serious injury, where they were. For the same reason, probably, no one else came to them. There was no thought of the usual evening meal. No one had any appetite for it, even if it could have been prepared and served. To the unnatural darkness of the storm was gradually added the natural darkness of approaching night. In the tiny, redecorated cabin, neither Erica nor Milly could see their surroundings. Each knew that the other was there, close—comfortingly close—by the feel of their arms holding and bracing each other against the incessant rolling and pitching of the clipper. And then, at the very height of the storm, there came a sudden lull, a mystifying dying down of the wind that was somehow even more alarming than its former violence. The _Sea Gull_ still pitched on the huge waves, but it seemed as if the hurricane had blown itself out, with the uncanny instantaneousness of magic. Erica released her protecting hold on Milly, and sat up, breathing unevenly, and stretching cramped arms and legs. “Perhaps this is the storm center,” she offered, doubtfully. “I’ve heard there’s always a spot of dead calm, right at the heart of a hurricane or cyclone. It lasts only a little while, and then you come out into the opposite side, where the wind’s even worse than before.” “Oh—oh, Ricky!” Milly said, in consternation. “You mean—all—_that_ has to start right up again? Let’s see if we can’t get to Cousin Callie,” she suggested, eagerly, jumping to her feet, “before it begins.” “All right,” Erica agreed, and was preparing to rise to her feet also, when there was a loud, grating, scraping noise that seemed to come from underneath the ship herself; a _slithering_, rumbling sound as if the keel were being forced across an uneven, rocky surface. The two girls had time for no more than an instinctive clutch at each other, and two frightened gasps, before the grating underneath them was followed by a rending crash that rocked the _Sea Gull_ more cruelly than either wind or waves had yet done. The suddenness of it flung them back helplessly on the cabin floor.