"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Jack.
He and several other sailors had seized axes as soon as the result of the crash was seen, and now sprang to the broken bulwarks, over which the mainmast lay, the jagged end of it in the water, pounding against the side of the schooner at every roll, and threatening to punch a hole in her as a battering ram punctures a wall.
"Strike hard, men!" called Jack, and the sound of their axes followed. Ropes were severed with a blow, but the wire shrouds were tougher, and it was not until several minutes had passed that the mast, with its tangle of sails and ropes, was chopped free to float away on the crest of a billow.
"Get up the mizzen storm sail!" ordered Captain Brisco. "She's falling off!"
The schooner was indeed in danger of wallowing in the trough of the big waves.
Pausing only for a moment, the sailors who had labored so valiantly at cutting loose the broken mast, sprang to get more sail on the craft. She was deprived of the reefed, or shortened, one that had been on the stick which was now overboard, and the jib was not enough to hold her head to the waves.
"What is it? Oh what is it?" gasped Miss Pennington as Alice fell, rather than walked down the companionway into the cabin.
"Are we sinking?" demanded Miss Dixon.
"Not at all!" answered Alice, catching her breath, and, with a shake of her head freeing her face from the salty spray that had drenched her. "It isn't anything at all."
She determined to make light of it, even though her own heart was beating like a hammer at the thought of her narrow escape from possible death.