A Bookful of Girls
slid along the heaving deck arm in arm, or clung to any chance support in a desperate effort to keep their footing.

Blythe had to buffet her way lustily as 26 she turned a corner to windward. Holding her golf-cape close about her and jamming her felt hat well down on her head, she made her way to the narrow passageway forward of the wheel-house where one looks down into the steerage. The waves were dashing across the deck, which was deserted excepting for one or two dark-browed men crouched under shelter of the forecastle.

26

There was a light, drizzling rain, and now and then the spray struck against her face. Blythe looked up at the “crow’s nest,” which was describing strange geometrical figures against the sky. The lookouts in their oil-coats did not seem in the least to mind their erratic passage through space. She wished it were eight-bells and time for them to change watch; it was always such fun to see them running up the ladder, hand over hand, their quick, monkey-like figures silhouetted against the sky.

How nobly the great ship forged ahead against an angry sea, climbing now to the crest of a big wave, and giving a long, 27 shuddering shake of determination before plunging down into a black, swirling hollow! And how the wind and the waters bellowed together!

27

The Captain was on the bridge in his rubber coat and sou’-wester. He had said this would not last long, and he had stopped for a second cup of coffee before leaving the table. All the same, Blythe would not have ventured to accost him now, even if he had passed her way.

Presently she returned under shelter of the awning and let Gustav tuck her up in her chair to dry off. And Mr. DeWitt came and sat down beside her and instructed her in the delectable game of “Buried Cities,” in which she became speedily so proficient that, taking her cue from the lettering on one of the lifeboats, she discovered the city of Bremen lying “buried” in “the sombre menace of the sea!”

After a while, Gustav appeared before them, bearing a huge tray of bouillon and sandwiches, with which he was striking the most eccentric angles; and Blythe 28 discovered that she was preposterously hungry. And while her nose was still buried in her cup, she espied over its rim a pair of legs planted well apart, in the cause of equilibrium, and the big, pleasant voice of Mr. Grey made itself heard above wind and sea, saying, “Guess where 
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