"That's the kind of man I have to deal with," muttered Wilbur.
"It's encouraging, and there's no one to talk to. Not much help
in a Chinaman and a crazy girl in a man's oilskins. It's about
the biggest situation you ever faced, Ross Wilbur, and you're all
alone. What the devil are you going to do?"

He acknowledged with considerable humiliation that he could not
get the better of Kitchell, either physically or mentally.
Kitchell was a more powerful man than he, and cleverer. The
Captain was in his element now, and he was the commander. On
shore it would have been vastly different. The city-bred fellow,
with a policeman always in call, would have known how to act.

"I simply can't stand by and see that hog plundering everything
she's got. What's to be done?"

And suddenly, while the words were yet in his mouth, the sun was
wiped from the sky like writing from a slate, the horizon
blackened, vanished, a long white line of froth whipped across the
sea and came on hissing. A hollow note boomed out, boomed,
swelled, and grew rapidly to a roar.

An icy chill stabbed the air. Then the squall swooped and struck,
and the sky shut down over the troubled ocean like a pot-lid over
a boiling pot. The schooner's fore and main sheets, that had not
been made fast, unrove at the first gust and began to slat wildly
in the wind. The Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping at
cleats, stays, and masts. They were helpless--paralyzed with
fear. Charlie clung to a stay, one arm over his head, as though
dodging a blow. Wilbur gripped the rail with his hands where he