Consternation seized Percy. Never before had he known Jim to acknowledge
himself beaten. Their plight must be serious indeed.
The dory swung side to the sea and sank into the trough. A half-barrel
of water slopped aboard. Percy bestirred himself. Setting the oar in the
scull-hole, he brought the boat's head once more into the wind. He was
not strong enough to drive her against it; but he could at least keep
her pointed into the teeth of the gale and prevent her from swamping. He
dropped to his knees, for it was too rough for him to keep his balance
if he stood upright.
How far off was Tarpaulin? As he looked back a red glare sprang up
northeast. Budge and Throppy had fired the driftwood beacon on Brimstone
Point. Small good it would do Jim and himself to-night.
They could not reach the island with one oar, and it was now too dark
for their friends on Tarpaulin to make out the drifting dory.
Percy began sculling frantically.
"Hi! Hi! Hulloo-oo!" he yelled. "Oh, Budge! Oh, Throppy! We're going to
sea! Come out and get us!"
It was like shouting against a solid wall. His cries were whirled away
by the gale. Presently he became silent, realizing that he was wasting
his breath.
Rapidly the dory drifted seaward. The fire dimmed to a misty red glow. A
smart shower burst, and great drops spattered over the dory.
Jim sat up. He turned his face toward the island, and Percy knew his
eyes had caught the dying beacon. He said nothing; there was nothing to
say. In a little while all was black, north, east, south, and west.
Then Jim spoke, and his voice was as calm and deliberate as if he were
in the cabin on the island, instead of a mile to leeward, driving to sea
before a norther.
"Well, Perce, we're in for it! I'm sorry I spoke so sharp when you broke
that oar. It's an accident liable to happen to anybody. Let's take
account of stock! We're in for a night and more on the water, and we
want to do our best to keep on top of it, and not under it, until the
gale blows itself out. The prospect isn't exactly rosy; still, it might
be a blamed sight worse. We're in a good dory, and that's the best sea
boat that floats."
"Aren't we likely to be picked up before morning?"
"Pretty slim chance. Everything small has scooted to harbor long before
this. We haven't any light, and a vessel or steamer large enough to pay
no attention to the storm would be as liable to run us down as to pick
us up. So about the best we can hope for is to have everything give us a
wide berth until daylight."
"Will the gale last as long as that?"
"Longer, I'm afraid. 'Most always we have one good, big norther in
August that blows two or three days. I'm really the one to blame for
getting us into this mess. I know the sea, and you don't. I ought to
have had brains enough to stop on Seal Island. Well, it's no use crying
over spilled milk. The only thing now is to try not to spill any more."
The rain was descending in torrents. Storm and night drew a narrow
circle of gloom about the reeling boat.
Spurling tried to rise to his feet. The dory jumped like a bucking
horse, and he caught the gunwale just in time to escape being pitched
overboard.
"Jerusalem!" he gasped. "Guess I won't try that again! Hands and knees
are good enough for me. Hold her, Perce! I'll throw out some of this
water."
Kneeling in the flood that swashed from bow to stern, he bailed
vigorously until the boat was fairly clear.
"No use wearing ourselves out trying to keep her head to it with the
oar!" said he. "I'm going to rig a drug!"
Directly under Percy's arms, as he sculled, was a trawl-tub containing
their purchases at Matinicus. These Jim tossed into the stern. Taking
the tub, he crept forward. A lanyard of six-thread manila, put across
double between holes in the top of its sides, formed a rope bridle or
bail. To the middle of this bail Jim tied the thirty-foot painter with a
clove hitch. Then he dropped the tub over the bow.
"Pull in your oar, Perce!" he called out.
Percy obeyed gladly. A heavy sea struck the dory. She reared, shot back,
and started to swing sidewise. Then the "drug" caught her, and she
seesawed again up into the wind and rode springily.
The tub, filled with water, and drifting on its side thirty feet before
the bow at the end of the straightened-out painter, formed a floating
anchor, which held the dory head to the wind and sea. Practically
submerged, and offering the gale no surface to get hold of, it moved
much more slowly than the high-sided boat, and so retarded its course.
Jim came crawling aft again.
"Guess that'll hold her!" he exclaimed. "I've strengthened the lanyard
with some ground-line, and it ought to last us through the night. We'll
be as snug as if we were in Sprowl's Cove, hey, Perce?"
Percy could hardly agree with him. The roaring, rain-shot blackness,
roofed with murky clouds and floored with rushing surges, was not
calculated to inspire confidence in a landsman. With every sea the dory
leaped back several feet, until the straightened painter brought her up.
Showers of spray flew over the boys. It was well both were clad in
oilskins.
They were not entirely without light. The water was firing. Every
breaking wave dissolved in phosphorescence. The tub before the bow was
outlined in radiance; the whipping painter was transmuted to a rope of
silver; and as the dory split the crashing rollers they streamed away in
sparkles of ghostly flame. Even in their peril the boys could not help
appreciating the weird beauty of the display.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" said Percy. "Say, Jim, how far south's the
nearest land?"
"Somewhere around two thousand miles, I guess. Too far to interest us
any. I think it's one of the West Indies."
The wind was growing stronger, the sea rougher. Now and then a young
flood set both boys bailing, Jim with the bucket, Percy with the scoop.
"Won't do to let it gain too much on us," remarked Jim. "She can't sink;
but if she should fill it'd be pretty uncomfortable."
The rain had ceased; the clouds did not hang so low. Suddenly Percy gave
a whoop of joy.
"Look in the west!"
Not far above the horizon appeared a rift of clear blue sky, sown with
stars. Longer and wider it grew. Other rifts added themselves to it, and
in an unbelievably short time the entire heaven was swept clean. But
somehow the wind seemed to blow harder than before.
"How soon will it calm down?" asked Percy.
Jim shook his head.
"Can't say! May be a dry blow for two days longer."
He looked eastward.
"What's that coming? Steamer?"
Sure enough it was. Below the white light on the masthead appeared and
disappeared the red and green, obscured intermittently by the tossing
waves. Soon they could be seen all the time. Percy began to grow
excited.
"Suppose they'll pick us up?"
"Not a chance in a thousand. It's too rough for the lookout to spy our
boat, and, even if the steamer should come close, we could never make
her hear. She's either a tramp or an ocean liner from Halifax for
Portland."
On she plowed unswervingly and majestically, straight toward them.
"I'm afraid she's coming too near for comfort," said Jim, anxiously.
"She might run us down and never know it. Lots of fishermen have gone
that way. Ship that oar in the scull-hole. I'm going to haul in the
drug."
He lifted the trawl-tub aboard and sprang quickly aft.
"We'll know pretty quick whether she's likely to pass ahead or astern.
We can't count on being seen. We've got to look out for ourselves."
Freed from its floating anchor, the dory bobbed wildly. Wielding his oar
skilfully, Spurling held her bow to the north, ready to scull for the
last inch, or to let her drop back, as the approach of the steamer might
make it advisable.
Closer and closer came the big boat; her lights oscillated with
pendulum-like regularity as she rolled on the heavy seas.
"She'll pass astern," was Jim's verdict. "Won't do to drift in front of
her."
He sculled strongly, keeping an anxious eye on the threatening monster.
Percy's hair bristled.
"Harder, Jim!" he shouted. "She's going to run us down! Steamer ahoy!
Keep off! Keep off!"
The rushing foam smothered his cries. Meanwhile Spurling worked like a
steam-engine. Two lives hung on his oar-blade.
As the knife-like stem sheared past, close astern, the green eye
disappeared; the red glared menacingly down from the huge bulk looming
overhead. Then the lofty black side swept by, flashing an occasional ray
from a lighted port-hole. The screw gave them a sickening moment, but
they soon tossed safely astern, breathing hard, eyes on the dwindling
leviathan, wallowing westward.