is that you and me are one day going to open Gorleston Harbour. This
smack's cost me too dear for me to lose her now. Lucky there's the
tell-tale compass in the cabin to show us the wind hasn't shifted."

All the energy of the man was concentrated upon this wrestle with the
gale for the ownership of the _Willing Mind_; and he imparted his
energy to his companion. They lived upon deck, wet and starved and
perishing with the cold--the cold of December in the North Sea, when
the spray cuts the face like a whip-cord. They ate by snatches when
they could, which was seldom; and they slept by snatches when they
could, which was even less often. And at the end of the fourth day
there came a blinding fall of snow and sleet, which drifted down
the companion, sheeted the ropes with ice, and hung the yards with
icicles, and which made every inch of brass a searing-iron and every
yard of the deck a danger to the foot.

It was when this storm began to fall that Weeks grasped Duncan
fiercely by the shoulder.

"What is it you did on land?" he cried. "Confess it, man! There may be
some chance for us if you go down on your knees and confess it."

Duncan turned as fiercely upon Weeks. Both men were overstrained with
want of food and sleep.

"I'm not your Jonah--don't fancy it! I did nothing on land!"

"Then what did you come out for?"

"What did you? To fight and wrestle for your ship, eh? Well, I came