The third day sundry signs betokening a storm lent an anxious expression to Duff's face, that soon transferred itself to Ralph's.
The wind stiffened gradually into half a gale and night closed in, around an ominous and threatening horizon. Though worn and wearied, the mate never gave up the tiller all during that black and perilous siege of darkness.
Ralph bailed and held the main sheet. When the squalls came he slackened up or drew in around the cleat as became necessary.
The scene was intensely depressing, hopeless, terrible. Hardly a word was spoken save in reference to the management of the boat.
Morning found them greatly exhausted and barely able to keep their small craft from broaching to. Had this happened they would have foundered undoubtedly.
The clouds seemed to press the ocean, confining the view to less than half a mile in any direction. The sea was a tumbling mass of gray, seething billows, that tossed the yawl at pleasure hither and thither, the rag of sail barely sufficing to keep her head to windward.
Ralph had endured the terrors of the night without a murmur. But he had been aboard the yawl now about five days on a diet of bread and water. Nature was giving way under the strain.
As he gazed around on the angry scene, where no sign of relenting on the part of the storm was evident, he turned to Duff and fixed on him a hopeless look.
"I don't think I can stand it much longer, sir," he said.
The mate's plight was almost as bad; indeed his wound was worse than Ralph's. But he was tougher; he had been shipwrecked twice previously.