In the cabin Lieutenant Stromberg was still playing solitaire; at the opposite side of the table his sister sat, with Drew beside her, reading aloud, as she took a lesson in English.

"Yo' pro-nouns doze d in 'chillen'?" Her concerned eyes flashed an anxious look up at Drew.

"Yes," he answered—"'children.'"

"Chil-d'en. Iss das mo' betteh?"

He bowed gravely, but said:"You must pronounce the r, too."

She shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

"Ah t'ink doze ahs ve'y difficult tow pro-nouns. Alone, no; but wiz doze ot'er let's doze bec-ome los'." She laughed again.

She turned a bright look upon Hetty.

"Meesteh Drew all tam rid doze poetry; so Ah say tow tich me doze lang-widge mo' betteh," she explained. "Ah was tich tow rid doze Anglish by ma home tow Denmahk, but Ah leahn tow spik eet off ma black maid tow St. Croix. She spik ve'y nize, but so sho'tly, Ah unnehstahnd heh not alwis."

"Shortly?" repeated Hetty, in doubt.

"Fastly, rapidly," explained Lieutenant Stromberg, looking up from his cards. "Ma sisteh's Anglish iss only a second coosin off das real Anglish—second coosin twice remove'—t'r-rough Denmar-r-k and Afr-r-rica." Lieutenant Stromberg knew his r's.

"I think she speaks beautifully, with such opportunities," Hetty replied, with spirit.

Miss Stromberg beamed her thanks.

"Ah t'ank yo' exceedin'," she said. She looked at her book, sighed, looked up again, and continued: "But doze poetry mek me tow haf doze sadness—me." She sighed again and shook her head. "Yo' lak doze poetry?"

"Not always," Hetty answered frankly.

The questioner laid the book hesitatingly on the table, and her hands drifted together in her lap.

"Ah t'ink das iss mos' coh'ect," she agreed. "Eet iss not alwis possible tow lak eet when yo' s'all t'ink off ot'er t'ings—doze noise' and stohms," she explained.

"Yet yo' s'all desire to heah doze noise' ofer once mo' when yo' rich St. Croix," said the lieutenant, without looking up from his game. "'Ah, doze beau-tiful noise'!' yo' s'all say—'so poetical!'" He laughed mischievously.

"We shall miss many things when we reach St. Croix," said Drew, looking at them and smiling.

Hetty glanced at him, then she leaned forward and put her hand on the Danish girl's arm.

"We shall miss you," she said softly.

"Ah, no!" Brother and sister spoke together. He turned and bowed to his sister smilingly.

"Ah, no!" she repeated; "yo' s'all coam at our house alwis; da do' s'all stahnd wide faw yo' fawefer." Her eyes included them all in the invitation.

"Ah wass going tow spik doze sem lak ma sisteh," said the brother, with a magnificent bow.

"I shall bring the book," said Drew, touching it. "It may go better there.""Shuah-lee!" laughed the Danish girl. "And yo' s'all rid eet in doze gahden, among doze floweh' mos' beautiful, wiz doze o'ange-tree' and t'ibet-tree' meking doze cool shadow, and doze sea-watah fah be-low shining in da sun. And noise—yo' s'all heah on-lee doze sea-watah mu'mu'ing soft-lee, and doze fountains whispehing, and possibly a lil' song ofehhead, and maybe some dahkies pahssing be-hin' doze high wall, calling tow sell yo' some t'ings ve'y nize—and nut'in' mo'."

"Hot arepa! hot arepa dem! Ya da hot arepa!" In a high, slurring singsong Lieutenant Stromberg gave the cry of the negro women street-venders.

"Yas; das iss eet," said his sister. "Yo' t'ink das iss nize?"

"Ah, it would be living poetry!" Drew answered.

She smiled, looked up, caught his gaze; her own dropped to her hands clasped in her lap."Das iss mo' nizeh dan heah?" she asked demurely.

"I shall never want to go away," he told her.

"And when doze hurricane coam," began her brother, "how—"

"Sh-h!" she exclaimed, while her eyes bubbled with laughter. "Why spik off doze when we go-ing in-vite peop' at ouah house? Possibly doze coam not aany mo'—doze huh'icane."

"Possibly not," agreed her brother.

"Aanyway," she continued triumphantly, "doze huh'icane nefer hu't us."

For a moment Mrs. March had forgotten the rolling vessel and the threatening sea. "The little tyke!" she said to herself, smilingly; but her daughter spoke aloud.

"Why do you make such a beautiful picture of it?" she asked. "Don't you know that I must go back to the cold and the snow?"Miss Stromberg laughed, and shook her head.

"Yo' s'all cah not," she answered. "Yo' s'all say, 'Oh, doze huh'icane!' Wheah da heaht iss, da iss da beautiful pictu'. So womens ah med," she added wisely.

"And is your heart there—in that garden?" Drew asked. He smiled.

She laughed again.

"'Tiss joost heah—and unfast," she replied, and placed her hand on her breast. "Eet hass no feexed 'abitation."

On deck they heard the tramp of feet going aft, and then, as the starboard side lifted, the cry of the crew hauling in the main sheet, and the hoarse croak of the blocks. Before the tramp was heard again, going forward, Captain March came from his room and hurried up to the deck.

Medbury walked over to his side.

"The wind's hauled around a little, sir. We couldn't keep the course."Captain March looked aloft, then glanced at the compass.

He gave no sign of having heard. Suddenly he stopped short and gazed forward.

"What's that contraption you got there, Mr. Medbury?" he asked.

"One of the flanges of the pump gave 'way, sir," answered the mate, "and we couldn't use but one bar; so I rigged up that whiz-jig. It's better than one bar, and, besides, we can work it from the poop. If things should get much worse, the men would drown on the main-deck."

"Does the water gain on you?" the captain asked.

"About the same—inch by inch. But she's getting a little logy, it seems to me; and if the wind should go down or haul ahead—" He paused in gloomy silence.

"It won't," said the captain.

He walked to the rail and took down the marking of the log-line, and then went below to lay out his position on the chart. For two days he had had no sun to take an observation, and could trust only to dead-reckoning. Carefully he laid out his course and marked the distance traveled, then tried to calculate how far the heave of the sea and the set of the current had modified his right position. At last he pricked out the spot with all the appearance of certainty, made a light ring about the dot, and was rolling up his chart as his daughter came to his side.

"Where are we now, father?" she asked.

He looked at her and smiled.

"Just about here or hereabout," he told her.

She took the chart from his hand and unrolled it.

"Where are we?" she demanded.

His stubby finger pointed to the dot.

"It's a long way to go yet," she sighed. "I hoped we were nearer."

As she spoke, the stern of the brig seemed to sink to a great depth, swing wide, then settle again, and there came a crash of falling seas upon the deck, and a wave went hissing across the house, falling in sloppy cascades before the window facing forward, which had not been battened. An instant later the captain was on deck.

The canvas screen about the taffrail was flapping loose from one of the poles; Medbury, with dripping oilskins, was at the wheel with one of the helmsmen, but the other was under the lee rail with his head down in his hands.

"That was a heavy one, sir," called Medbury as he bent to the spokes. He straightened up, panting, and nodded to the man who was down. "Don't think he's much hurt," he shouted.

Captain March walked over to the sailor, and, leaning over him, took him by the shoulder.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.The man rose slowly to his feet, shaking himself.

"I struck my head against the bitts," he said slowly. "I guess it stunned me for a minute."

"Where?" asked the captain.

The man, with fingers that trembled, slowly unbuttoned his sou'wester, took it off, and fumbled about his head. The captain watched him.

"Well, you better look out next time," he called with mild severity, which stopped short of positive reproof. "I guess you were watching over your shoulder more'n you were your course. Well, now you go forward and send Charlie aft."

He walked toward the wheel, but Medbury said:

"I'll hold on here a spell, sir."

"No," said the captain; "I'll take a hold. Just get that canvas lashed up again, will you?" Then he took the wheel, which he was not to leave again, except for one brief moment, until the end.

When Medbury had lashed the screen fast, Captain March nodded to him to come near, that he might speak.

"Better start your topsail-sheets a bit," he shouted. "They'll lift a little and ease her. Give 'em about two feet—no more'n that."

As the afternoon wore on, the wind increased in force and the sea grew heavier. Now and then a sharp shower swept past, and ceased suddenly; but the clouds did not lift, and the rack flew overhead, low down, like steam from a huge exhaust-pipe. At seven bells a topgallantsail-sheet parted, and by the time the sail was housed and the yard lowered it was dusk.

As Medbury prepared to go aft again, he paused by the fore-rigging and looked up. The canvas was thundering like a drum corps; the lee rigging swung slack, but that to windward was as stiff as iron, and shrilled like a score of fifes or roared like organ-pipes.

"Oh, shut up!" he said aloud, and then grinned shamefacedly at his irritability.

As he came to the steps leading up to the poop-deck, he paused and looked about him. It seemed to him that the wind had suddenly ceased, and he could hear it far away, roaring back a defiance through the murky twilight. The next moment he heard the captain shouting to call all hands and shorten sail.

With the crew increased by the men from the lost Danish bark, they had all things made snug and fast in an incredibly short time, and under maintopmast-staysail with the bonnet out, lower topsail, and foretopmast-staysail, they were rolling down the long seas in leisurely fashion by the time night was fairly upon them.

Still panting with his heavy exertion, Medbury was standing by the taffrail, looking down at the foam that now seemed only to creep by them, and thinking gloomily of the water rising in the hold, when suddenly he became aware of an increase in the weight of the wind upon his face. He looked up, but, seeing nothing, glanced down again; but in that brief moment the foam had disappeared, and he was gazing into blackness. He turned quickly, only to see that the same darkness had swallowed up the men at the wheel and every part of the vessel. The binnacle-light was burning, but the dim glow stopped short at the slide: beyond that it seemed to have no power to go. With an indescribable sensation of being absolutely cut off from every living thing, he stepped quickly toward the wheel, and, putting out his hand, touched his captain. It gave him a curious feeling of intense relief. Then he heard Captain March speaking in a calm voice that quieted him instantly.

"Is that you, Mr. Medbury?" he said. "What's wanted?""It's getting black, sir," he said—"black as a nigger's pocket."

"I noticed it," said the captain.

"It came on all of a sudden," the mate went on. He wanted to hear his voice and the voice of the captain: in some curious way even the trivial words seemed to mitigate the awful darkness.

"Maybe you'd better get out some lines for the men at the pumps, and make 'em fast across deck," continued the captain. "We can't afford to lose anybody overboard. And bring us some, too. When you've done that, just go down to your room, as if you'd gone to fetch something. Maybe it'll help the women-folks a little to see somebody from the deck before it begins," he went on in a matter-of-fact voice. "But don't stay. I may want you any minute."

In haste, and with hands that fumbled a little, Medbury rigged stout life-lines across the deck for the men at the pumps; and, leaving straps for the captain and his companion at the wheel, descended into the cabin. He struck a match in his room, and looked about him vaguely, smiling to himself at his purposeless errand at a time when moments were fraught with life or death. He was not, like his captain, a man of imagination: his mere passage through the cabin seemed only a bit of fanciful foolishness of which he was a trifle ashamed.

His match flickered and went out; for a moment he stood staring before him in the darkness, hearing the voices of those in the cabin as they talked together. He heard Drew's deep tones, and Hetty replying to them, and a sudden impotent rush of jealousy overwhelmed him as he thought that he must battle on deck in what might be their last fight, while this man, who had known her barely as many days as he had loved her years, would be with her in these last hours. Blindly, without looking to right or left, he walked through the cabin and ascended to the deck.

Though he had been below only a moment, an amazing change had taken place. As he seized the hasp of the door to open it, the pressure from the outside was so great that for a moment he thought that some one was leaning against it. He knocked on it loudly, then pushed again, becoming immediately aware that the resisting force was wind. Then throwing all his weight forward, he squeezed through, with the door slamming to behind him.

It was only the beginning. The seas seemed to grow momentarily heavier, and it became impossible to stand erect upon the deck. When Medbury went forward to the pumps, as he did from time to time, he went with bent body, keeping his hand upon the rail. His face was stiffened with salt, which clung to his eyelashes and had to be wiped away constantly. It became in time no longer possible to distinguish sounds: the bellow of the wind, the roar of the sea, the thunder of the canvas, and the groaning of spars and timber, became merged in an indescribable tumult, the waves of which, like a great sea of sound, seemed to rise about them and beat them down into insignificance. In this strange melting away of all the known landmarks of his craft, Medbury stood at times helpless and irresolute, and doggedly awaited the end.

To those shut up in the cabin there came, as the night wore on, a sense of impending danger. Once, unable longer to bear the feeling of isolation from those who were fighting on deck for their lives, Hetty made her way with difficulty to the companionway, and, mounting to the doors, tried them. Then she turned.

"They have locked us in!" she cried, staring down at her companions. The lamp, swinging in its gimbals, cast only a faint light upon their upturned, startled faces. Her lips trembled. "It makes me afraid," she faltered.

Miss Stromberg burst into tears. Hetty hurried down to her, and, sitting close together on the lounge, the two clasped each other's hands, listening. The men sat with closed eyes for the most part. Mrs. March had long before gone to her room.

Once there came three unusually heavy seas, and as the brig rolled down it seemed to Hetty that they never would rise again, and, closing her eyes, she prayed silently. Then there came the long "smooth," and she opened her eyes and smiled upon her companion.

"That is better, isn't it?" she whispered.

"Ah do not lak eet," Miss Stromberg whispered back. "Ah ahm affred, also—me."

Hetty patted her hands.

"It will be better soon," she said.

"Do yo' t'ink Ah s'all be los' once mo'?" asked the girl. "Ah ahm tow lit' tow was'e all doze sto'ms on—me." She laughed hysterically.

"No, no!" cried Hetty. "You will be home to-morrow—in that garden."

"Oh, doze gahden! Eet sims a t'ousand woilds f'om heah."

"To-morrow," continued Hetty, "this will seem like a bad dream."

"Ah pray Ah may slip mo' sound-lee," she murmured laughingly. "But yo'—yo' haf doze cou'age!" she added admiringly.

"I trust my father," replied Hetty. She was gaining courage by imparting it.

"And das young officer?"

"Yes," said Hetty.

"Yo' lak him mooch?"

"I've known him all my life."

"Das iss ve'y nize." She turned suddenly to Drew. "Wass yo' t'ink off?" she asked him.

He looked at her and smiled."I was thinking of your garden just then," he replied.

"Ah!" she murmured delightedly. "Yo' joost da sem lak us!"

"You were thinking of it, too?" he asked.

"Dees ve'y minute. Das iss ve'y nize—tow t'ink doze sem t'ings altowgeddeh."

"Eet iss a ve'y nize gahden," said Lieutenant Stromberg, "but eet iss not so nize as yo' s'all t'ink. Nut'in' iss," he explained. "Eet s'all bec-ome dull—lak dees, lak efer't'ing. Me—Ah s'all play doze cahds." He laughed, and, taking his cards from the glass rack, began another game of solitaire.