Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/246

 skipper, partially conscious, was talking to himself.

"'Long 'baout dark," mumbled Jonah Sully, "I reckon it'd been better if I'd thought to run for the lee o'—" his voice trailed off.

Varge straightened up, and a smile, grim, without mirth, was on his lips as he stared out before him into the white-flecked darkness—"Jonah" Sully! An hour passed and another—and found them both in the same position, Jonah Sully in Varge's arms. What man could do, Varge had done; the slight knowledge of seamanship that he possessed he had utilised to the utmost—there remained nothing but to await—the end.

Hope he had long since given up, in the sense that he was prepared, calmly and fearlessly, to meet the death that seemed inevitable. Little by little, he had realised that the lift of the schooner had grown more sluggish, until now the deck was almost constantly awash and only the little rise by the cabin roof saved them from the worst of it. Either the wrecked foremast had done its work before he had been able to get rid of it, or the strain and fearful buffeting had opened the schooner's seams—the Mary K. Jones was filling slowly, but none the less certainly. It was but a matter of hours at best, perhaps but a matter of minutes before she must go down.

Well, better that than a life dragged out in drear hopelessness behind steel bars and clanging doors and grey, mocking walls—far better to die like this than face that living death again, if only—if only she knew!

Out through the darkness the tumbling walls of water