A moment before he and Drew ducked into the forward cabin, they had a chance to catch their breath. The wind fell instantly to a benevolent forty knots and a break appeared in the clouds. They saw a teasingly serene strip of blue and, about half a mile to the northwest, Loggerhead Light, tall and white, its green Fresnel lens casting across an anarchic sea a radiant beam of hope and salvation; a salvation out of reach, a hope they dared not allow themselves to feel, as they dared not allow themselves to be seduced by the thin, fleeting patch of blue. Westward, another dark gray precipice reached to heaven, promising more, and greater, wind.

Below, the main cabin looked as if it had been ransacked by a team of burglars in a hurry: strewn dunnage, broken bottles flung from the medicine chest, charts, books, tin plates, and pots and pans, which clattered with every roll and thud.

Will, on his knees, was at the midships pump, pushing, pulling.

“Taken on water,” he said, unnecessarily.

“Not surprising, considering how much of it there is out there,” said Eliot, sitting on the cabin sole beside the chart table. A rag was bound around his left hand and a terror-stricken Trajan lay in his lap.

Nathaniel and Drew stumbled through the short, narrow passageway between the forward and main cabins. The ship rose, came down with a bang, and they toppled, Drew into the companionway, Nathaniel on top of Will.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, and wedged himself into the corner of the L-shaped settee that bracketed the dining table.

“Quite all right.” Will closed the hatch over the bilge pump. “Reckon I’ll fall on you before this is over.”

“Maybe it’ll be over soon,” Drew said, sucumbing to hope. “The wind fell off a minute ago.”

“It piped right back up, though, didn’t it. That was just a hole. There are holes in a hurricane wind, just like in an ordinary wind. Nope, shipmates, it’ll get worse before it gets better. The eye wall hasn’t hit us yet.”

They looked at Will. He was tired, his head thrown back slightly, his eyes half closed.

“What’s an eye wall?” Eliot asked.

“The winds around the eye, the middle of a hurricane. They’re the strongest.”

“You mean …”

“Right. Ain’t seen nothing yet. Figure we’re in for a hundred knots and then some. The really horrible news is that I’m down to my last three cigarettes.”

“And then what?”