"God! Romer, what's the matter?" Avery got to his feet at once. He forgot that he was seasick. His bodily distresses fled before the swift, strong lash of fright.
"The fact is," replied Romer slowly, "we 've struck a confounded gale—a November gale," he added. "It's turned easterly. She 's been dragging her anchor since two. Now"—
"Now what?" demanded Avery sharply. He staggered into his clothes without waiting for an answer.
"Well—we 've snapped our road."
"Road?" The landsman struggled to recall his limited stock of nautical phrases. "That's the rope you tie your anchor to? Oh! What are you going to do?" he asked, with unnatural humility. The fatal helplessness of ignorance overwhelmed him. If he ever lived to get back, he would turn the tables, and conduct Romer through a complicated lawsuit.
"Run into the Sound if I can," returned Romer. "It won't do to get caught on some of these shoals round here."
"Of course not," replied Avery, who did not know a shoal from a siren. "Say, Romer, what's the amount of danger? Out with it!"
"Oh, she's good for it," said the yachtsman lightly. Then his voice and manner changed. His insouciant black eyes peered suddenly at his guest as if from a small, keen, marine lens.
"Say, old fellow," he said slowly, "I hope there was n't any sort of a quarrel,—you know,—any domestic unpleasantness, before you came on this trip? I wish to blank I 'd left you ashore."
"Quarrel? A demon could n't quarrel with my wife!" exploded Avery.