With a rasping sound, clearly distinguished across the intervening water, as though every timber cried out in agony to the strain, the battered hulk slid downward, the deck breaking amidships as the stern splashed into the depths; then that also toppled over, leaving nothing above water except the blunt end of a broken bow-sprit, and a tangle of wreckage, tossed about on the crest of the waves.

Instead of playing that the dirt was a host of evil sprits, as Migwan did, which she could vanquish with the aid of her magic broom, Betty went at it sullenly and with a firm determination to do as little as possible and get through just as quickly as she could.