stood, his teeth set, his eyes wide, waiting for the foundering of
the schooner, his only thought being that the end could not be
far. He had heard of the suddenness of tropical squalls, but this
had come with the abruptness of a scene-shift at a play. The
schooner veered broad-on to the waves. It was the beginning of
the end--another roll to the leeward like the last and the Pacific
would come aboard.

"And you call yourselves sailor men! Are you going to drown like
rats on a plank?" A voice that Wilbur did not know went ringing
through that horrid shouting of wind and sea like the call of a
bugle. He turned to see Moran, the girl of the "Lady Letty,"
standing erect upon the quarterdeck, holding down the schooner's
wheel. The confusion of that dreadful moment, that had paralyzed
the crew's senses, had brought back hers. She was herself again,
savage, splendid, dominant, superb, in her wrath at their
weakness, their cowardice.

Her heavy brows were knotted over her flaming eyes, her hat was
gone, and her thick bands of yellow hair whipped across her face
and streamed out in the wind like streamers of the northern
lights. As she shouted, gesturing furiously to the men, the loose
sleeve of the oilskin coat fell back, and showed her forearm,
strong, round, and white as scud, the hand and wrist so tanned as
to look almost like a glove. And all the while she shouted aloud,
furious with indignation, raging against the supineness of the
"Bertha's" crew.

"Stand by, men! stand by! Look alive, now! Make fast the stays'l
halyards to the dory's warp! Now, then, unreeve y'r halyards! all