The packet steamer was slugging hot-foot for Eastville as the sun went down behind an ominous bank of clouds. Thunder was rumbling to the south’ard and Captain Westhaver was glancing every now and again out of the pilot-house window. “Only a thunder storm, I reckon,” he muttered. “But I don’t like that cussed glass an’ that blurry sky to th’ south’ard. Looks jest like a West Injy hurricane sky. But, we’ll git in afore it strikes.” The sea was smooth save for a slight swell rolling up from the south’ard, and there was but little wind. The chatter and laughter of the picnickers sounded unusually loud on the quiet air. Someone was playing a fiddle, and there was a dance going on aft.

Down on the after freight deck away from the crowd, Donald McKenzie sat on the bitts, sucking away at a dry pipe, and communing with his thoughts. Outwardly calm, yet boiling inwardly, he reviewed his years of acquaintanceship with Ruth Nickerson. Ever and anon, the memory of the night in Halifax would rise to mind, and he would vision again her upturned face with the dim light upon it, and feel the soft warmth of her body as he held her in his arms when she had said, “Kiss me, Don, and go!” Pah! He brushed his hands across his lips. It was a Judas kiss, for but a scant two months afterwards she had become engaged to another.

There was a patter of rain on the sea, a growl of thunder, and the sky had suddenly become overcast with sullen clouds. The pattering rain turned into a teeming downpour, but McKenzie took no notice of it. Nature was only in keeping with his mood, and even when the rain slashed in upon his body he made no note of the squall which caused it. The sea was rising after the first ten minutes of the puff, and the rolling of the steamer caused a cessation of the music, the dancing, and the chatter on the deck above. “Goin’ t’ have a storm, I reckon,” remarked someone behind him. He turned. It was a fireman up for a breath of fresh air. “Yes,” returned McKenzie. “A summer squall.”

It was darkening fast. The sun had set and the heavy clouds curtained the after-glow. Ever and anon, a vivid flash of lightning would shatter the darkness and render the night blacker than before, and the wind was rising. To port, Donald could see the land against the faint light in the west, and he knew they were drawing in to the heads of Eastville.

He suddenly realized that he was soaking wet and he shivered with the chill of it. His collar was limp and the rain was running down his neck and inside his clothing. The clammy discomfort cooled his burning body and brought him back to a realization of things around him. It was blowing a savage squall, and the packet steamer was rolling and smashing the waves into spray. Up on deck he could hear the frightened cries of sea-sick women.

The sailor instinct came to the fore, and, for the time being, he forgot the, to him, tragic event of the afternoon. Glancing ahead, he could see the white water on the Lower Eastville Ledges, hounded by the gusts and squalls, boiling and quarrelling with the rocks. The Outer Ledge sparbuoy slipped by, and he felt the steamer canting as the wheel was put hard over to make the turn into the channel. Then, all of a sudden, something snapped above his head, and he was struck a heavy blow, as of a whip, across the back. He turned and saw a piece of steel wire rope hanging from fair-leads in the deck beams above. “What the—?” he ejaculated rubbing his smarting shoulders, and then a realization of what had happened came to him in a flash. “Jupiter! Wheel gear has parted!”

Two men—the mate and a deck hand—came running to where he stood. “Where’s th’ spare tiller? God’s truth! we’ll be on th’ ledges—” The words were whipped from the officer’s mouth as a piling sea came aboard and hurled him, the deck hand and McKenzie to leeward. As they lay in the scuppers, they felt the steamer ground—once, twice, three times—and finally with a terrific crash. “She’s ashore!” yelled the mate jumping to his feet and scrambling up the ladder. A huge comber, with a livid, curling crest which seethed and growled, piled up ready to fall, and McKenzie and the deck hand leaped behind the casing as it struck the helpless steamer. Through the spray, Donald saw white-painted planks and pieces of the vessel tossing in the wake of the breaker, and with the water up to his chest he struggled along the narrow alleyway to a ladder leading to the deck above.

A mob of frightened, crying and screaming women and girls were crowding in the lee of the upper deck cabins, and when a sea hit the steamer and caused her to grind and twist, they shrieked in fear. Looking at the starboard life-boat, McKenzie saw that it was already stove, so he turned to the port boat which Captain Westhaver, Judson and other men were trying to swing out.

“You here, Don?” cried Nickerson when McKenzie elbowed his way to him. The skipper’s face was strained with anxiety, and he seemed relieved to see him. “Git these lubbers out o’ th’ way, Don,” he roared, “so’s we kin git this boat out. Th’ gaul-derned thing ain’t wu’th a hoot in hell anyways, but we might git th’ wimmin in and away from th’ ship. She’ll be in flinders in a damn short time!”

Pushing back the men and youths who were pressing around the boat, most of whom were farmers and tradesmen, McKenzie shouted, “Don’t crowd now, boys. We’ll get the boat out a sight quicker if you’ll give us a chance.” He spoke kindly and confidently and they stood clear while the davits were out-swung.

“D’ye reckon ye kin git away from th’ side?” cried Captain Westhaver to Judson. “Devil of a back-wash down thar’ an’ she’ll be stove sure as blazes——”

Crash! A double wave piled over the steamer’s superstructure and poured tons of chilly brine into the boat, and while the women screamed, and the men hung on to anything available, the flimsy bolts in the davit heads parted with the weight of the water-filled life-boat and it up ended and fell into the sea.

“God save us!” cried Nickerson, aghast at this catastrophe. “That’s yer coaster gear for ye! By the old red-headed, creeping Judas, Cap’en Westhaver, ye sh’d be tarred an’ feathered for that piece o’ botch work! Hell’s bells! We’re jammed in a clinch for fair, naow.”

Donald stood beside him. “What’s best to do now, Jud?” he asked calmly. “Durned ef I know,” answered the other. “Cal’late we’d better see th’ women with life-belts on an’ git to work on a raft.”

A terrible sea was piling over the ledges by now, and revealed in the flashes of lightning, it looked awe-inspiring and frightful. The steamer had struck broadside on to one of the reefs, and had been lifted almost over it. If she went much further there was the dire possibility of her sliding into the deep water on the inside of it and foundering. A sandy beach could be seen—a hundred yards away—a trifle astern of the vessel, while ahead of her rose a small rocky cliff upon which some stunted spruce trees grew.

While Donald and some others were working on a raft, Captain Nickerson was tying life-belts on to Ruth and Helena. Both girls were dreadfully frightened, but managed to keep calm. Moodey stood, white-faced and silent, with an arm around Ruth to keep her from sliding overboard when the vessel pounded. Helena was hanging to her friend’s arm, and secured around the waist by a line which Judson had rove through a ring bolt, and the other girls—about forty of them—were similarly protected. All stood huddled under the lee of the upper deck-cabin.

Torn with anxiety and fearful of Helena’s and his sister’s safety, yet Judson appeared outwardly calm, and he soothed the girls with cheerful words. When a sea would crash over the steamer his booming laugh would be heard. “Don’t let that scare you? That’s nawthin’. Hang on for a bit and there’ll be a slew of dories alongside. The boys’ll be coming aout from Eastville.” In his heart he knew he lied. No dories could live in that broil of tide, wind and ledge-torn water, and at Eastville there was neither a life-boat or a Lyle gun breeches-buoy apparatus.

The captain of the steamer dragged himself along to where Nickerson stood. “Ef someone c’d only swim ashore with a line,” he shouted above the tumult, “we might git a hawser fast to a tree on th’ point yander and rig up a breeches buoy. But it’s takin’ a big chanst whoever tries. Liable to git mushed up in the surf.”

Judson nodded. It was a chance—their only chance. The steamer would go to pieces inside an hour ... when the tide rose. The storm might abate in that time, but the sea would be there long after the wind had subsided, and hanging on to the vessel would be fatal. The only solution was to get the crowd clear of the ship before she went to pieces. He turned it over in his sailorly mind. He couldn’t swim, but he might be able to get ashore on a couple of planks. “By gorry!” he muttered, “it might be done!” And aloud he bawled to Westhaver. “Git a couple of stout planks ’n lash ’em together, ’n get me something for a paddle. I’ll ride th’ blame thing in to the beach same as the Kanakas in the South Seas ride the surf on a board. Sing aout when you’re ready!”

Helena overheard the bawled conversation and clutched him by the arm. “What are you going to do, Jud?” she cried fearfully. Then with a glance at the surf seething and roaring on the beach to leeward and swirling in toppling combers around them, she added hysterically. “No, no, no! Judson, you can’t do it! You can’t do it!”

He looked into her frightened face and laughed. There was no fear in his keen dare-devil eyes when he replied tenderly. “Don’t worry, Helena. I’ll get there ... somehow. Jest you hang on here ... an’ pray to God!” The last words were spoken reverently.

She suddenly threw her arms around his neck and her wet hair fluttered around his face. “Judson,” she pleaded. “You can’t do it. You know it can’t be done. Stay with us and we’ll die together!” Then she turned towards Ruth who was hidden from her by Walter’s body. “Ruthie!” she cried. “Judson can’t swim and he’s going to try and reach the shore on a plank with a line. He can’t do it! He can’t do it! Don’t let him go!”

Westhaver scrambled for’ard again. “I got a couple o’ fine two-inch plank all lashed up for ye, Jud. Well-seized an’ spiked they are so’s they’ll hang together,” he was meticulously exact in his description of the preparations for the desperate venture, “and I’ve got some stout line and a good paddle fur ye. We’re ready fur ye, Jud, old man, an’ by cripes, ef you make it....”

A sea burst over the house and caused the fabric to tremble ominously. When the tide rose, the waves would hurl themselves on the light superstructure and it wouldn’t last long. Judson knew that and he cried, “I’ll be right with ye, Eben!”

Helena screamed and clutched him tight around the neck. “No, no, no! It’s certain death!” she wailed. “You can’t swim and you’d never get through ... that!” She gave a frightened glance at the sea. Ruth, who had been standing apathetic hanging on to Moodey’s arm and the life-line, suddenly turned to her fiancee. He was shivering and silent and had hardly spoken a word. “You’re a good swimmer, Walter,” she cried. “Why don’t you try it? Don’t let Judson go. He can’t swim a stroke!” And she looked up into his face imploringly.

Walter seemed to be galvanized to life. He gave an apprehensive look at the sea roaring and crashing around them and at the white water racing and bursting over the rocks ahead. In the darkness it looked horrible. There were pieces of jagged timbers whirling and tossing around in this hell’s caldron and he thought of swimming among them. The roar and thunder of the water; the livid tossings in the blackness and the awfulness of demoniac power suggested in the staggering impacts of the waves against the steamer’s hull and the rending and grinding of timbers un-nerved him. “God ... Ruth, I—I couldn’t do it!” he burst out at last. “Nobody could swim in that. I’d—I’d be smashed to pieces in the breakers. Look at them! Look at them!” And he pointed with shaking fingers at the raging water.

“But to the beach below there,” cried Ruth appealingly. “You might manage that, Walter. Think of the women aboard. You might be able to reach the shore. I’ll pray for you, Walter dear. Try, Walter, my brave boy. You’re a good swimmer——”

He shook his head vehemently, angrily. “No, no, no! Ruth, darling. Don’t ask me! I couldn’t do it. Nobody could swim that. You’re trying to send me to certain death. No, no, no! We’ll hang on here until the men come from Eastville in the boats. They’ll be here soon now. The storm will soon be over. Just wait, dear. Just wait!” There was a whimpering note of protest in his voice, and in the semi-darkness, Ruth looked at him in amazement. She heard him mumbling again. “Why should I go? ... certain death ... just wait. Just wait.” She stared up at his face; noted the fear and horror expressed in it, and her lips curled contemptuously. “And you so often boasted of your swimming!” The scorn in her voice made Moodey writhe, but he hung on the life-line and mumbled. “I know. I know, Ruth ... but I couldn’t swim in that. You want to see me drowned ... just wait!” The girl savagely disengaged his arm from around her waist, and to her brother she said with a trembling in her words. “Go, dear Juddy, go! And God go with you! There are no cowards in the Nickerson family—men or women—and ... there never will be!” And she kissed him.

Nickerson swung around to Helena. “I’m agoin’, Helena,” he said calmly. “So long, little girl!” He bent down and kissed her on the spray-drenched lips. “Go, darling, and may God aid you!” she cried, and when he dragged himself away the two women, clinging together, watched him vanish in the darkness with pallid faces upon which spray and tears mingled.

On the after-deck, McKenzie, who had been busy on a raft, saw Judson whipping off his coat. “And what are you going to do, Jud?” he asked. “Try to git in with a line,” answered the other grimly. “I might manage to make the beach yonder, and if I can, I’ll come up araound to the point ahead there and git a hawser ashore. Breeches-buoy, y’know.”

“But—but you can’t swim, Jud,” exclaimed McKenzie protestingly, “You’ll never make it!”

“I’ll make a dam’ good try anyways,” growled the other determinedly. Donald laughed and proceeded to divest himself of his coat, pants and boots. There was a resolute look on his boyish features, but he still laughed as he stripped. “And what th’ devil are you laughing at? And what are you cal’latin’ you’re agoin’ to do?” cried Nickerson, staring at the young man in amazement.

“Me?” McKenzie stopped laughing, stared to leeward, and carefully scanned the sea—the racing, broiling run of it and the violent confusion of water which separated the wreck from the shore. “Why, Juddy, old timer, I’m laughing at the idea of you trying to scramble ashore on two planks. You’d be choked or drove under ere you’d made five fathom off the ship. Remember the West Wind and the Livadia? I’ve had some practice—you haven’t. I’m going to let you tend the line, old timer, and I’ll swim ashore!” He spoke the last sentence without laughing and in a voice that brooked no denial.

Nickerson demurred. “You’ve got a mother and you’re all she’s got——” The other nodded and said in the same grim tone, “If anything should happen, Jud, I rely on you to look after her. Now, get your line coiled and see that there is enough of it and no chafes or broken strands.”

Captain Westhaver broke in, “It’s a kile o’ trawl ground-line, bran’ noo stuff, an’ stout an’ strong. I got three hundred fathom here——” “But, hell!” growled Judson obstinately, “I’m agoin’, Don—not you!” Donald pulled off his boots and tightened the waist-band of his under-drawers. “No, no, Jud!” he said. “What’s the use of you going? It would only be wasted effort. You can’t swim. I can. It’s up to me. You’re needed aboard to rig up that breeches-buoy and get the people off. If I shouldn’t make it, you can try, but not before. Gimme that line!” “Th’ lad’s right,” concurred the steamer captain, and he handed the end of the thin, light, trawl-line to McKenzie, who proceeded to knot it around his shoulders. “Now, Jud,” he said finally. “I’m going to make for the beach yonder, and if I manage it, I’ll carry my line up to the point ahead. When I give a signal, you bend a stout halliard and a block to it and I’ll pull it ashore and rig my end of the gear to one of those trees. You know how the business is worked. Now, Jud, old man, so long! If anything should happen ... look after my mother!” And while Nickerson stood half-dazed with the suddenness of this usurpation of his voluntary forlorn hope, McKenzie was scrambling along to the stern of the pounding steamer. For a full minute he stood amidst the chill sprays awaiting a chance, and his slim body would be outlined against the livid whiteness of the foaming water. Several times when flying water from the waves slashed across the deck, the anxious watchers thought he had gone. They waited with their hearts in their mouths, and Nickerson nervously fingered the line. A smooth after a big sea; a momentary cessation of the tumult; a muffled shout from the slim figure at the rail—then into the back of a racing comber he dived!

Nickerson tending the line felt it weaving through his hands, and he leaned over the broken rail and stared into the spray and rain with chill fear clawing at his heart. He was trembling with anxiety for his friend—the lad he had trained in the ways of the sea and the man he loved as a brother—and he peered into the tumult of surging combers, into which Donald had gone, with nervous concern. Watching the sea and the line slipping through his fingers in spasmodic jerks, he was unaware of two female figures scrambling along the drenched deck behind him. It was Helena and Ruth who, unable to remain lashed up for’ard, had come aft to see if Judson had gone on his desperate mission. Mistaking him for someone else, they cried fearfully, “Has he gone?”

Captain Westhaver heard and answered shortly, “Yes!” And added. “Take care an’ hang on, girls!” Then Judson shouted out, “He’s still going! He’s still going! I believe he’ll make it!”

“Oh!” The two women cried out together at the sound of the voice, and Helena asked quickly, “Who’s that? Is that Juddy?”

“Aye! That’s Cap’en Nickerson at th’ rail,” answered Westhaver.

“Then who’s gone? Who’s out there?” It was Ruth’s question.

“Young Cap’en McKenzie! He’s aswimmin’ in to th’ beach!”

Ruth gave a queer little cry. “Donald?” For a moment she stood as if dazed. She had been thinking of him all along and wondering where he was. And he was out in that! And he had not come to her! Everything seemed to swim before her, and she would have fallen had not Captain Westhaver grabbed her as she swayed. “Oh! oh!” she whimpered. “He’s gone and I didn’t know it! Oh! oh! he’s gone.... Oh, God help him!” And with Helena and Westhaver holding her up, she stared into the blackness alternately sobbing and calling on the Almighty to guard and keep the man who was struggling through the breakers in an effort to save them all.

And McKenzie was having a desperate struggle—the greatest fight of his life! With his head down, and swimming a powerful overhand stroke, he got clear of the ship and into a broiling welter of leaping combers which toppled over on his body, forcing him under with the weight of the falling water and tossing him on their frothing crests like a shingle in an eddy. The tide, racing in with the sea and wind, was driving him towards the rocks, and he realized that, once in its grip, he would be done for—smashed to a pulp on the ledges which were dashing the seas to spray and effervescing foam.

It was about a hundred yards to the sand beach, but it was a hundred yards of raging water—a mill-race of shouting, roaring, fighting, whirling combers whipped to fury by wind, back-wash, tide and the inequalities of the bottom, and by the time he had three minutes in among this inferno of water he felt his strength giving out. He was choking for want of air; his mouth and nose were full of salt brine, and the buffeting of the waves and the drag of the tide were fast weakening him, and he hadn’t made half the distance. Gasping for breath, he struggled on until he felt that he had reached the limit of his endurance. His muscles were lagging and refusing to respond. His heart was pounding as if it would burst inside his chest, and he found it increasingly hard to breathe. He thought of his mother and Ruth and murmured a prayer as his strokes became feebler. He was going to die—a modern Leander of Abydos—and he decided to throw up his hands and drown rather than be shattered on the rocks with the spark of life in his body. He had stopped swimming, when a kindly under-tow—an inshore eddy—caught him and bore him away from the ledges.

He thought dazedly of the women aboard the wreck and it spurred him to life again. Treading water in the momentary respite and gulping great chestfuls of air, he prepared himself for the final effort—the battle with the surf on the beach. He could discern the shore clearly now as he rose on a wave, and when he made out the sloping sand of the beach he took a last gulp of air and drove in on the back of a mighty comber. Husbanding his strength, he held back when it broke until he felt the sand under his feet. Digging his toes in, he tried to stem the back-wash, but he was too weak. His legs collapsed under him and he was caught in the following comber and rolled over and over in a broil of water and sand. Clawing desperately at the unresisting grains, he caught a projecting bolt from a buried wharf-timber, and hanging on to it with all the strength he could muster until the wave receded, he scrambled frantically on hands and knees up the beach ere the next breaker came pounding in.

For a full five minutes he lay prone with half the senses and breath knocked out of him, until the brain, recovering quicker than the muscles, began to urge, “Get up! Think of the women! Judson, Helena, Ruth!” Even her name came to him sub-consciously just as it had come when he was for giving up in the broil of it. He rolled painfully to his feet and staggered like a drunken man along the beach. He glanced at the loom of the steamer lying amidst the whitewater on the ledges, then suddenly felt for the line. It was still around his body, and he gave three strong jerks at it to see if it had parted. By the feel of it, he knew it was all right and mumbled thanks to God. Then, stumbling over the sand, boulders, and pieces of timber and trees, he ran for the point.

Aboard the wreck, Nickerson was almost frantic with fear. The line had not taken a fathom from him for about five minutes and he imagined the worst. Then three distinct tugs came on the cord which he held. He wheeled around with a triumphant bellow. “By the old red-headed Judas Priest! He’s done it! By Godfrey! He’s done it ... th’ bully boy!” And he laughed like a drunken man.

Helena gave Ruth a violent shake and almost screamed, “Do you hear, Ruth? He’s done it! He’s ashore! Oh, God, we’re saved! We’re saved! Oh, Father, to thee our thanks ... for him ... and us!” Ruth nodded dumbly. She couldn’t speak, but mentally she was praying and thanking the Almighty for His mercy.

Judson was bawling—calmly now. “He’s getting araound to the Point. Git that block an’ tayckle ready, Cap’en. You got that strop araound th’ forem’st and a tail-block on? Good! And that ring-buoy and whip-line—have ye got it slung and ready to reeve off? Fine! We’ll send that halliard rope ashore....” He and Westhaver walked forward with the line, shouting encouragement to the drenched, shivering, and now apathetic mob of people hanging in life-lines under the lee of the deck-house. The rising tide was sending solid water over the packet’s upper decks now and pieces of the superstructure were sluicing over the lee rail. The people in the shelter of the house were often up to their knees in swirling water. McKenzie had just reached the shore in time! “Don’t git scared naow,” consoled Westhaver. “We’ll hev ye ashore in a jiffy. Th’ rope’s gone in ... cheer up ... soon be aout o’ this!” And Judson was chattering away to him and the packet’s crew as they rigged the breeches gear. “Knew him since he made his first voyage to sea ... a poor little whitefaced nipper of a ’prentice-boy in a lousy four-mast barque out o’ Glasgow. Game as they make ’em.... I made a sailor out o’ him ... th’ little skinny nipper ... and naow he’s a better man than me!”

“Aye!” said Eben solemnly, “and you’re an able man yourself, Judson Nickerson! An able man!”

Up on the Point, Donald, shivering in his wet underwear, hauled the stout rope ashore and was lashing a block to a tree trunk when several men with lanterns appeared. They stared at him in astonishment, and in answer to their questions he pointed to seaward and replied huskily, “There she is! Steerin’ gear wheel rope parted and she grounded on the ledge yonder. I’m rigging a breeches-buoy to bring the folks ashore.... Here! Fix this. My hands are numb! Look sharp or the old hooker will be falling to pieces in the pounding she’s getting out there now!” The men—Eastville folks who had come out to the Point to see what had delayed the steamer—set to work and rigged the gear under McKenzie’s direction. Within ten minutes they were hauling the first passengers ashore.

Donald stood huddled under a boulder and watched a number of the women land. He saw Ruth and Helena among them. He did not wish to see either of them—the events of the afternoon were too fresh in his mind. He was still bitter. Then he remembered his contract with Cal Heneker, and the memory spurred him to ask a man to loan him an overcoat and get him over to the town. Seeing that he could do no more, and that the packet’s crowd would be rescued all right, he left for home in company with a farmer who had a horse and buggy with him.

His mother was standing in the door of Shelter Harbor when he arrived, and she almost went into hysterics when she saw him. “Don’t be frightened, Mother,” he soothed. “I’m all right and so is everybody else. The old steamer went aground in that storm, but everybody got off safe. I had to swim ashore and I left my clothes. So now, Mother dear, make me a good hot cup of tea while I change, for I must get aboard my ship and away with the tide. The storm is breaking off now and it’s going to be a fine night.”

Aching in every muscle, and with his shoulders, arms and legs skinned and bruised by the pounding he had got on the sand, Donald rubbed himself down with liniment and bandaged a few of the worst scrapes. Then he climbed stiffly into his sea clothes and went down-stairs.

Over a cup of scalding tea, hot biscuits and cake, he smiled at his mother and patted her cheek. “Dear old mother,” he said with a tender note in his voice. “Always worrying and fretting about me.”

“But just think, Donny, if you’d been drowned?” she said plaintively. He laughed happily. “I’m not born to be drowned, mammy-dear. Swimming is the only athletic accomplishment I have, and I can swim easier than I can walk. I did it easily. ’Twas only a hundred yards.”

The mother shook her head as if doubting the light manner in which he was relating the experience of the evening, and she thought of the day, years ago, when M’Leish, mate of the Sarmania, had come to her with evil news. She shuddered involuntarily and her hand gripped that of her son’s in a tense clasp. “Oh, Donny-laddie, if I were to lose you...?” She bit her lips and her eyes filled with tears at the bare thought.

He set down his cup and rose to his feet. Slipping his arms around her neck, he kissed her, saying tenderly. “Mother mine, you’re not going to lose me. I’m yours always, and you’re always mine!”

She smiled gravely and looked into his eyes. “Maybe ... someday, Donny, my son, you’ll be saying that to another woman.”

He winced imperceptibly, and into his tired eyes there flashed a sudden tense look—a shadow of painful memory reflected in the windows of the soul—then it vanished, and he smoothed her hair lovingly. “There is no other woman but you, Mother dear!”

And an hour later, and while the crew and passengers of the ill-fated packet steamer were being warmed and re-clothed in the farm houses near the scene of the wreck, Captain Donald McKenzie was stiffly and painfully pacing the quarter of the Amy Anderson standing out to sea.

The wind had dropped to a light breeze when they passed out of the channel. A heavy swell—aftermath of the gale—was running, and the wreck of the steamer could be distinctly discerned in the moonlight with the waves making a complete breach over it. The whole superstructure was gone, and nothing but the hull remained, and as he stared at it, McKenzie thought of the mental wreck he had experienced but a few hours previous. “Mrs. Walter Moodey,” he murmured, and he smiled bitterly.