out to fight and wrestle for my immortal soul, and let it go at that!"

Weeks turned away, and as he turned, slipped on the frozen deck. A
lurch of the smack sent him sliding into the rudder-chains, where he
lay. Once he tried to rise, and fell back. Duncan hauled himself along
the bulwarks to him.

"Hurt?"

"Leg broke. Get me down into the cabin. Lucky there's the tell-tale.
We'll get the _Willing Mind_ berthed by the quay, see if we don't."
That was still his one thought, his one belief.

Duncan hitched a rope round Weeks, underneath his arms, and lowered
him as gently as he could down the companion.

"Lift me on to the table so that my head's just beneath the compass!
Right! Now take a turn with the rope underneath the table, or I'll
roll off. Push an oily under my head, and then go for'ard and see if
you can find a fish-box. Take a look that the wheel's fast."

It seemed to Duncan that the last chance was gone. There was just one
inexperienced amateur to change the sails and steer a seventy-ton
ketch across the North Sea into Yarmouth Roads. He said nothing,
however, of his despair to the indomitable man upon the table, and
went forward in search of a fish-box. He split up the sides into rough
splints and came aft with them.

"Thank 'ee, lad," said Weeks. "Just cut my boot away, and fix it up
best you can."