The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1915-03-31
BY JACK LONDON.
(Continued from Yesterday

tContinueu from iesteruay.)
Day broke and found me wan
eyed and the ocean dashed white,
the boat pitching, almost on end.
to its drag. We were In imminent
danger OF being swamped by the
whitecaps. As 1t was, spray and
spume came aboard In such guam
titles that bailed without ces-
sation. The blankets were soak
ing. Everything was wet except
Maud, and she, in oilskins, rubber
boots, and sou-wester, was dry,
all but her face and hands and a
stray wisp of hair. She relieved
me at the bailing-hole from time
to time, and bravely she threw out
the water and faced the storm. All
things are relative. 1t was no
more than a stiff blow, but to us,
fighting for life IN our frail
craft, it was indeed a storm.
Cold and cherries the wind
beating on our faces, the white
seas roaring by, we struggled
through the day. Night came. but
neither of us slept. Day came,
and still the wind beat on our
faces and the white seas roared
past. BY the second night Maud
was falling asleep from exhaus-
tion. covered her with oilskins
and tarpaulin. She was COM
paratively dry, but she was numb
with the cold. / feared greatly
that she might die in the night;
but day broke, cold and cherries.
with the same clouded sky and
beating wind and roaring seas.
l had had no sleep for forty
eight hours. / was wet and
chilled to the marrow, till l felt
more dead than alive. My body
was stiff from exertion as well as
from cold, and my aching muscles
gave me the severest torture
whenever | used them, and ] used
them continually. And all the
time we were being driven off
into the northeast, directly away
from Japan and toward bleak
Boring Sea.
And still we lived, and the boat
lived, and the wind blew un-
abated. In fact, toward nightfall
of the third day it increased I'M
der a crest, and we came through
quarter-full of water. / bailed
like a mailman. The liability of
shipping another such sea was
enormously increased by the wa
ter that weighed the boat down
and robbed II of its buoyancy.
And another such sea meant the
end. When ] had the boat empty
again / was forced to take away
the tarpaulin which covered Maud,
in order that might lash 1t down
across the bow. 1t was well did,
for it covered the boat fully a
third of the way aft, and three
times, in the next several hours, 1t
flung off the bulk of the down
rushing water when the bow
showed under the seas.
Maud's condition was pitiable.
She sat crouched in the bottom
of the boat, her lips blue, her
face gray and plainly showing the
pain she suffered. But ever her
eyes looked bravely at me, and
ever her lips uttered brave words.
The worst of the storm must
have blown that night, though
little / noticed it. / had sue
cumbed and slept where / sat In
the stern-sheets. The morning of
the fourth day found the wind
diminished to a gentle whisper,
the sea dying down and the sun
shining upon us. Oh, the blessed
sun! How we bathed our poor
bodies In its delicious warmth, re-
viving like bugs and crawling
things after a storm. We smiled
again, said amusing things, and
waxed optimistic over our situa-
ton. Yet 1t was, If anything,
worse than ever. We were far
Their from Japan than the night
we left the Ghost. Nor could l
more than roughly guess our
latitude and longitude. At cal
culation of ,two-mile drift per
hour, during the seventy and odd
hours of the storm, we had been
driven at least one hundred and
fifty miles to the northeast. But
was such calculated drift correct?
For all knew, 1t might have been