by us, very fast, with a roar of the great swells bursting loudly at its
foot.

"Thunder! you Sammy!" shrieked the skipper. "I won't have you taking such
chances. I'm just as crazy to get there as you are but I'll be hanged if
I'm going to smash my ship."

"We's all right now, Cap'en," answered the old man, quietly; "I sure
knows all right what we is doin'."

The captain had taken the wheel, and he glared at his binnacle like a
wild man. Now and then he gave a swift look around him, nervously, but
the old man's assurance had some effect upon him. Yet once I heard him
snarling:

"Any man who ever catches me cruising around this country again can have
me locked up in an asylum. After I get shut of this job they can get some
one else if they ever want to come back."

And still the fog seemed to deepen, and the moisture dripped from
everything, and the very air seemed hard to breathe. The darkness began
to come and all our lights were burning, while the siren continued to
moan. Several times, in answer to it, we faintly heard mournful sounds of
fishermen's horns, and once we blindly swerved just in time to avoid
running down a tiny schooner.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sor," the old man said to me, "seem' as how ye ain't
busy it might be yer wouldn't mind startin' a bit of prayer as how we
don't smash up one o' them poor fellows. We jist got ter take some
chances, fer I mistrust th' Lord he be wantin' ter save that doctor o'