that rolled and swam and rose and fell with maddening complexity.  Then came a breath of deadly chillness, and then a horror of great darkness—­a darkness that could be felt.  The skipper himself took to the fore rigging, and placed one of the watch handy to the wheel; finally he called all hands up very quietly, and the men hung on anyhow.  One drift after another passed by in dim majesty, and the spectacle, with all its desolation, was one never to be forgotten.  After half an hour or so, Blair glanced up and noticed a dim form sliding down the shrouds; then the skipper rushed aft, for the helmsman could not see him, and then came a strange dark cloud of massive texture looming through the delirious dance of the fog-wreaths.  First a flare was tried, then the bell was rung with trebled vigour.

“Down below, sir, and call all up.  He’s yawed into us.”

Blair saw the shape of a large vessel start out in desperate closeness; and running through to the saloon, cried quickly, “All up on deck!  Ferrier, Fullerton, Tom, lend a hand with the ladies.”

A yell was heard above; the poor sick folk came out in piteously thin wrappings, moaning as they walked, and all the company got on deck just in time to see a big barque go barely clear.

The youngest girl fainted, and Marion Dearsley attended to her with a steady coolness that earned the admiration of her assistant—­the doctor.  The serried ranks of the wreaths ceased to pour on, and the worn-out landsfolk went below.

Right on into the next night the unwearied gale blew; significant lumps of wreckage drifted past the schooner, and two floating batches of fish-boxes hinted at mischief.  The frightful sea made it well-nigh impossible for those below to lie down with any comfort; they hardly had the seaman’s knack of saving themselves from muscular strain, and they simply endured their misery as best they could.  The yelling of wind and the volleying of tortured water made general conversation impossible; but Tom went from one lady to another and uttered ear-splitting howls with a view of cheering the poor things up.  Indeed, he once described the predicament as distinctly fahscinating, but this example of poetic license was too much even for Thomas, and he withdrew his remark in the most parliamentary manner.  Ferrier was more useful; his resolute, cheerful air, the curt, brisk coolness of his chance remarks, were exactly what were wanted to reassure women, and he did much to make the dreary day pass tolerably.  His services as waiter-general were admirably performed, and he really did more by resolute helpfulness than could have been done by any quantity of exhortation.  He ventured to take a long view at sundown, and he found the experience saddening.  The enormous chequered floor of the sea divided with turbulent sweep two sombre hollow hemispheres.  Lurid red, livid blue, cold green shone in the sky, and were reflected in chance glints of horror from the spume of the charging seas.  Cold, cold it was all round; cold where the lowering black cloud hung in the east; cold where the west glowed with dull coppery patches; cold everywhere; and ah! how cold in the dead men’s graves down in the darkling ooze!  Ferrier was just thinking, “And the smacksmen go through this all the winter long!” when the skipper came up.