II.


By eleven o'clock at night the gale had increased to such an extent and
the sea had begun to build so high that it was a question whether or not
the whaleboat would ride the storm. Bennett finally decided that it
would be impossible to reach the land--stretching out in a long, dark
blur to the southwest--that night, and that the boat must run before
the wind if he was to keep her afloat. The number two cutter, with
Ferriss in command, was a bad sailer, and had fallen astern. She was
already out of hailing distance; but Bennett, who was at the whaleboat's
tiller, in the instant's glance that he dared to shoot behind him saw
with satisfaction that Ferriss had followed his example.

The whaleboat and the number two cutter were the only boats now left to
the expedition. The third boat had been abandoned long before they had
reached open water.

An hour later Adler, the sailing-master, who had been bailing, and who
sat facing Bennett, looked back through the storm; then, turning to
Bennett, said:

"Beg pardon, sir, I think they are signalling us."

Bennett did not answer, but, with his hand gripping the tiller, kept his
face to the front, his glance alternating between the heaving prow of
the boat and the huge gray billows hissing with froth careering rapidly
alongside. To pause for a moment, to vary by ever so little from the