Events aboard the Mary Ellen did not transpire at all slowly. In a comparatively short space of time she had been converted from an old hulk into a good sailing vessel, she had put to sea with a party of moving picture workers, including a sailor accused of mutiny, who had broken jail. She had been stopped by the English ship, and now the old schooner was starting to scud before the blast of a hurricane. For the time being the accusation against Jack Jepson was forgotten.
"Lively now, everyone!" cried Captain Brisco. "When a storm breaks down here, it isn't any child's play. Double reefs in all sails, and two men at the wheel. Lash everything fast, pass life-lines, and passengers keep below."
"Oh, but I want to see the storm!" exclaimed Alice.
"Oh, how can you!" remonstrated Ruth. "It is going to be—awful!"
And indeed, if the evidence of sky and sea, and the moaning of the wind, were any indication, a great storm was in prospect.
The billows that had been rolling with oily smoothness now began to show little feathery crests of foam, and they were following one another with greater quickness, as if impatient to be at their shattering work.
The wind seemed most ominous of all. It was as though it came from afar off, down behind the horizon line that showed black, with a fringe of angry yellow in the west. A low, mumbling, roaring, moaning wind it was, that whistled mournfully through the rigging of the schooner, and howled down the companionways.
"Oh dear!" sighed Ruth, as she slipped her arm into that of her sister, and started for their cabin. "Come on, Alice. I'm afraid!"
"Nonsense! What of? Nothing has happened—yet."
"No, but there is going to be a terrible storm!"