The girl struggled for a moment, then lay passive in his arms. He was delirious from the fire and the battle. He did not know what he was doing. Freeing herself with an effort from his clinging arms she drew away.
"We must put to sea," she cried. "Before the storm breaks."
Gregory roused at her words and turned quickly away.
"Yes," he answered. "You're right. I forgot."
Within a few minutes the cannery fleet was head
ing down the main harbor channel in the direction of the open sea.
Then the storm broke. Battling desperately into the teeth of the gale, the fishing-boats plunged head-on into the curling waves. Lashing the sea into white-caps, the wind picked up the water and hurled it to the decks in great clouds of choking, blinding spray.
In a last dying flare the flames leaped upward from the charred hull of the Florence as she lay pillowed on the rocks. And in the feeble glow, only Hawkins, who was looking astern, saw the shadowy outline of a long gray boat nosing her way about the island.
The Gray Ghost was running before the storm.