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experience were equally positive that each succeeding wave must mark the

termination of the lives of the vessel and her company.

The deck, washed now almost continuously by hurtling tons of storm-mad water,

as one mountainous wave followed another the length of the ship, had become

entirely impossible. With difficulty the men were attempting to get below between

waves. All semblance of discipline had vanished. For the most part they were a

pack of howling, cursing, terror-ridden beasts, fighting at the hatches with those

who would have held them closed against the danger of each new assault of the

sea.

Ward and Skipper Simms had been among the first to seek the precarious safety

below deck. Theriere alone of the officers had remained on duty until the last, and

now he was exerting his every faculty in the effort to save as many of the men as

possible without losing the ship in the doing of it. Only between waves was the

entrance to the main cabins negotiable, while the forecastle hatch had been

abandoned entirely after it had with difficulty been replaced following the retreat

of three of the crew to that part of the ship.

The mucker stood beside Theriere as the latter beat back the men when the seas

threatened. It was the man's first experience of the kind. Never had he faced

death in the courage-blighting form which the grim harvester assumes when he

calls unbridled Nature to do his ghastly bidding. The mucker saw the rough,

brawling bullies of the forecastle reduced to white-faced, gibbering cowards,

clawing and fighting to climb over one another toward the lesser danger of the

cabins, while the mate fought them off, except as he found it expedient to let

them pass him; he alone cool and fearless.

Byrne stood as one apart from the dangers and hysteric strivings of his fellows.

Once when Theriere happened to glance in his direction the Frenchman mentally

ascribed the mucker's seeming lethargy to the paralysis of abject cowardice. "The

fellow is in a blue funk," thought the second mate; "I did not misjudge him--like

all his kind he is a coward at heart."

Then a great wave came, following unexpectedly close upon the heels of a lesser

one. It took Theriere off his guard, threw him down and hurtled him roughly

across the deck, landing him in the scuppers, bleeding and stunned. The next

wave would carry him overboard.

Released from surveillance the balance of the crew pushed and fought their way

into the cabin--only the mucker remained without, staring first at the prostrate

form of the mate and then at the open cabin hatch. Had one been watching him

he might reasonably have thought that the man's mind was in a muddle of

The Mucker