Part 111

“Bail faster, then! Bail or drown!”

“She's leaking,” announced the cook. “She has been on deck so long she has got all dried out.”

“Bail or drown!” repeated Mayo. To the girl he said: “This seems to be the only way of getting work out of cowards. They'll have to do it. I'm about done for.”

The waves were lifting and dropping them in dizzying fashion. There was suddenly a more violent tossing of the water.

“That's the old packet! She went under then!” Mayo explained. “Thank the Lord we are out of her clutches! I was afraid we were stuck there.”

“Is there any hope for us now?” she inquired.

“I don't know. If the boat stays afloat and the wind doesn't haul and knock this sea crossways, if somebody sees us in the morning, if we don't get rolled onto the coast in the breakers and--” He did not finish.

“It seems that a lot of things can happen at sea,” she suggested.

“That fact has been proved to me in the past few weeks.”

“You mean in the past few hours, don't you?”

“Miss Marston, what has happened on that schooner is a part of the business, and a sailor must take it as it comes along. I wish nothing worse had happened to me than what's happening now.”

She made no reply.

“But no matter about it,” he said, curtly.

The two men, kneeling amidships, clutching a thwart and bailing with their free hands, toiled away; even Bradish had wakened to the fact that he was working for his own salvation.

In the obscurity the waves which rose ahead seemed like mountains topped with snow. Hollows and hills of water swept past on their right and left. But the crests of the waves were not breaking, and this fact meant respite from immediate danger.

“I'm sorry it was all left to you to do,” ventured the girl, breaking a long silence. “I thought Ralph had more man in him,” she added, bitterly. “I feel that he ought to apologize to you for--for several things.”

He, on his part, did not reply to that. He was afraid that she intended to draw him into argument or explanation. Just what he would be able to say to her on that topic was not clear to him.

“It seems as if years had gone by instead of hours. It seems as if I had lived half a life since I left home. It seems as if I had changed my nature and had grown up to see things in a different light. It is all very strange to me.”

He did not know whether she were talking to herself or to him. He did not offer comment.

There was a long period of silence. The sound of rushing waters filled, that silence and made their conversation audible only to themselves when they talked.

“I don't understand how you happened to be on that schooner--as--as you were,” she said, hesitating.

“I didn't rig myself out this way to play any practical jokes, Miss Marston,” he returned, bitterly.

“I would like to know how it all happened--your side of it.”

“I have talked too much already.”

There was no more conversation for a long time. He wondered how she had mustered courage to talk at all. They were in a predicament to try the courage of even a seasoned seaman. In the night, tossed by that wild sea, drifting they knew not where, she had apparently disregarded danger. He asked himself if she had not merely exhibited feminine ignorance of what their situation meant. He had often seen cases where apparent bravado was based on such ignorance.

“I must say that you told me at least one truth a while ago--you are not a coward,” he said at last.

She was comforting the wretched cat. “But I am miserably frightened,” she admitted. “I don't dare to think about the thing. I don't dare to look at the waves. I talked to you so as to take my mind off my troubles. I didn't mean to be prying.”

“I'll tell you what has been done to me,” he blurted. “Hearing somebody's troubles may take your mind off your own.”