Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/41

 other over the knobbly meadows to the bare, surf-drenched rocks of Bluff Point.

It was at the very corner where bay met sea, and the long Atlantic rollers flung themselves here, cold, cold and white-lipped under the February sky. Great gray waves leaped and shouted and thundered and tore masses of shuddering seaweed from the rocks to fling them back and forth in the swirl of foam. Jane was ecstatic and in her element. Standing upon a rock perilously near the spray-clouds that flew about, she proceeded to indulge silently, but with wild gesticulations, in a form of play-acting which she secretly carried on at times. At this moment it was, of course, the Fortune of the Indies caught off the Horn. The sheets were frozen; the decks were a glare of ice; the main royal was slatting itself to pieces on the yard, and half-frozen men, clutching at slippery jacks, were trying desperately to furl it. Jane was leaning at a dangerous angle over an imaginary taffrail.

"Port, port your helm!" she shouted silently. "My heavens, we're lost!"

Jane was indeed lost. Her gestures shook