www.freeclassicebooks.com

The wind, increasing steadily, was now whipping the sea into angry breakers that

dashed resoundingly against the rocky barrier of the island. To drift within reach

of those frightful destroyers would mean the instant annihilation of the Halfmoon

and all her company, yet this was precisely what the almost unmanageable hulk

was doing at the wheel under the profane direction of Skipper Simms, while Ward

and Theriere with a handful of men altered the meager sail from time to time in

an effort to keep the ship off the rocks for a few moments longer.

The Halfmoon was almost upon the cliff's base when a narrow opening showed

some hundred fathoms before her nose, an opening through which the sea ran in

long, surging sweeps, rolling back upon itself in angry breakers that filled the

aperture with swirling water and high-flung spume. To have attempted to drive

the ship into such a place would have been the height of madness under ordinary

circumstances. No man knew what lay beyond, nor whether the opening carried

sufficient water to float the Halfmoon, though the long, powerful sweep of the sea

as it entered the opening denoted considerable depth.

Skipper Simms, seeing the grim rocks rising close beside his vessel, realized that

naught could keep her from them now. He saw death peering close to his face. He

felt the icy breath of the Grim Reaper upon his brow. A coward at heart, he lost

every vestige of his nerve at this crucial moment of his life. Leaping from the

wheelhouse to the deck he ran backward and forward shrieking at the top of his

lungs begging and entreating someone to save him, and offering fabulous rewards

to the man who carried him safely to the shore.

The sight of their captain in a blue funk had its effect upon the majority of the

crew, so that in a moment a pack of screaming, terror-ridden men had

supplanted the bravos and bullies of the Halfmoon.

From the cabin companionway Barbara Harding looked upon the disgusting

scene. Her lip curled in scorn at the sight of these men weeping and moaning in

their fright. She saw Ward busy about one of the hatches. It was evident that he

intended making a futile attempt to utilize it as a means of escape after the

Halfmoon struck, for he was attaching ropes to it and dragging it toward the port

side of the ship, away from the shore. Larry Divine crouched beside the cabin and

wept.

When Simms gave up the ship Barbara Harding saw the wheelmen, there had

been two of them, desert their post, and almost instantly the nose of the

Halfmoon turned toward the rocks; but scarcely had the men reached the deck

than Theriere leaped to their place at the wheel.

The Mucker