desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a
leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft and flung almost over the
straining hawser. But the skipper had the courage of ten and the
strength and endurance of two. He steadied and fended with his left hand
and held the girl firmly against him with his right. She clung to him
and did not whimper or struggle. A group of men, unhampered by any duty
with the ropes, crouched and waited on the very edge of the cliff. At
last they reached out and down, clutched the skipper and his burden,
and with a mighty roar dragged them to safety.

Black Dennis Nolan staggered to his feet, still clasping the girl in his
arms. He reeled away to where a clump of stunted spruces made a shelter
against the gale and lowered her to the ground, still swathed in
blankets.

"Start a fire, some o' ye," he commanded.

The men looked curiously at the young woman in the drenched blankets,
then hastened to do the skipper's bidding. They found dry wood in the
heart of the thicket and soon had a fire burning strongly.

"What of the others? Am I the--the only one?" asked the girl.

"Aye, ye bes the only one--so far as we kin see," replied the skipper.
"There bain't no more lashed to the spars anyhow."

She stared at him for a moment, then crouched close to the fire, covered
her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. The skipper groaned. The
tears of Lady Harwood had not moved him in the least; but this girl's
sobs brought a strangling pinch to his own throat. He told two lads to