Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/111



HALF hour after dawn Long John Larkin, the engineer, and Philip Lee, the negro deck hand, saw an ugly thing. They had fought a good fight until then—an almost hopeless fight against a furious southwest gale which long ago had smashed the Sea Swallow's rudder and was now driving the thirty-foot launch toward breakers which would annihilate her. Capt. Mat Norman had directed that fight with the coolness and skill which Larkin and Lee had learned to expect of him in all emergencies. Then, as though some nerve within him had snapped, he seemed to go suddenly insane with fear.

He shouted something to Larkin, but his voice was cracked from much yelling against the gale, and the wind whirled his words away unheard. Then he tried to throw Larkin overboard. Long John was the bigger man and shook him off. Next he made for Lee, and the negro, his face the color of ashes, seized a heavy bar of iron and warned him back.

Keeping his footing with difficulty, Norman stag-