We shipped a bucket full of water, and then settled into a good pace, a cream of surge along our port gunwale, and a white wake astern.

The woman kept on bailing steadily, until the planks were dry, and then crept cautiously back to the thwart just in front of me, leaning over slightly to keep clear of the occasional flap of the sail.
I hoped she would speak, and thus afford me some excuse for telling what I had discovered on board the _Sea Gull_, but she sat there in silence, staring straight ahead into the ceaseless drizzle, her oilskins gathered tightly.

Holding the tiller under my arm I unscrewed the face of the compass, and made a guess at our position.

However, there was no star, or other mark of guidance, by which I could steer; only the wind, which apparently shifted in gusts, and I could merely hold the leaping craft in the course I deemed safest.

I doubt if the eye penetrated twenty feet beyond the boat's rail, but we raced through the smother in a way that gave me a certain thrill of exultation.