Adela prepared to take her out to the now isolated cabin, and bring off the inmates. Old Reefe remonstrated. He said it was certain death to go; that no boat could live in such a wind on a short, shallow sea; and that his daughter must wait until the storm abated. "No," cried Adela; "I am going, whether it's death or not! How do you know what will happen to them out there if I wait? The cabin itself may be swept away, and poor old aunty in it. Then, Dennie is there, and--and perhaps Sylv." For one instant, as she uttered this name, her voice sank. "If they had any boat, 'twould be another thing. But they're cut off--they can't help themselves--and I'm going." The brave girl hardly believed that she could make the trip in safety, but she thanked her stars that Dennie had brought her up to handle a tiller--and the rest she left to Providence. The water was swashing up close to the door of the little hut, and Aunty Losh and Jessie sat within, holding on to each other in silence when, through the deep, prolonged roar of the tempest, they fancied that they heard a shout--a woman's shout. Simultaneously with it there came a thud, like the dropping of some heavy weight upon the ground just outside of the house. "Lord be praised!" Aunty Losh exclaimed, "Thar ain't nothin' could do that ar but the ole dug-out. Open the do', Miss Jessie." Jessie considered this as a command to invite dissolution into their fragile shelter; but she obeyed. In a few moments they were on board the sloop, bouncing and reeling through the violent waves. By this time Colonel Floyd, having also received the alarm, reached the spot on horseback. Waiting with old Reefe on the shore, he noted every motion of the plunging sail, which was let out barely enough to give the dug-out headway. Adela stood at the helm, strong and masterful as a man, but with a quick, feminine eye for every chance or change of the terrific gale, and with a touch that responded instantly to her observation. She ignored her two passengers absolutely. But when, after several escapes from foundering and a weary battle of tacking from one point to another, the sloop rounded, with her heavy prow, into the cove and touched the land, the girl dropped down in the stern, exhausted.