Wha's that?' cried Davis, bounding in the boat and upsetting the

champagne.

You lost the Sea Ranger because you were a drunken sot,' said Herrick.

Now you're going to lose the Farallone. You're going to drown here the

same way as you drowned others, and be damned. And your daughter shall

walk the streets, and your sons be thieves like their father.'

For the moment, the words struck the captain white and foolish. 'My

God!' he cried, looking at Herrick as upon a ghost; 'my God, Herrick!'

'Look behind you, then!' reiterated the assailant.

The wretched man, already partly sobered, did as he was told, and in the

same breath of time leaped to his feet. 'Down staysail!' he trumpeted.

The hands were thrilling for the order, and the great sail came with

a run, and fell half overboard among the racing foam. 'Jib

topsail-halyards! Let the stays'l be,' he said again.

But before it was well uttered, the squall shouted aloud and fell, in

a solid mass of wind and rain commingled, on the Farallone; and she

stooped under the blow, and lay like a thing dead. From the mind of

Herrick reason fled; he clung in the weather rigging, exulting; he was

done with life, and he gloried in the release; he gloried in the wild

noises of the wind and the choking onslaught of the rain; he gloried to

die so, and now, amid this coil of the elements. And meanwhile, in the

waist up to his knees in water--so low the schooner lay--the captain

The Ebb-Tide