desk from harm.

Taking advantage of favouring spells, I managed to effect my exit and
gain the newel-post ere the next series of rolls came. And as I
clung on and waited, I could not forget what I had just seen.
Vividly under my eyelids burned the picture of Miss West's sleep-
laden eyes, her hair, and all the softness of her. A WOMAN AND
DESIRABLE kept drumming in my brain.

But I forgot all this, when, nearly at the top, I was thrown up the
hill of the stairs as if it had suddenly become downhill. My feet
flew from stair to stair to escape falling, and I flew, or fell,
apparently upward, until, at the top, I hung on for dear life while
the stern of the Elsinore flung skyward on some mighty surge.

Such antics of so huge a ship! The old stereotyped "toy" describes
her; for toy she was, the sheerest splinter of a plaything in the
grip of the elements. And yet, despite this overwhelming sensation
of microscopic helplessness, I was aware of a sense of surety. There
was the Samurai. Informed with his will and wisdom, the Elsinore was
no cat's-paw. Everything was ordered, controlled. She was doing
what he ordained her to do, and, no matter what storm-Titans bellowed
about her and buffeted her, she would continue to do what he ordained
her to do.

I glanced into the chart-room. There he sat, leaned back in a screw-
chair, his sea-booted legs, wedged against the settee, holding him in
place in the most violent rolls. His black oilskin coat glistened in
the lamplight with a myriad drops of ocean that advertised a recent
return from deck. His sou'wester, black and glistening, was like the