A Night in the Deep
Once fairly out again into the harbour, I saw two things that were but
little to my satisfaction. Far away up the river were three more
canoes. I understood at once that the savages whom we had just worsted
were the mere vanguard of the Black Abbe's attack. The new-comers,
however, were so far behind that I had excellent hopes of eluding them.
The second matter that gave me concern was the strong head-wind that
had suddenly arisen. The look of the sky seemed to promise, moreover,
that what was now a mere blow might soon become a gale. It was already
kicking up a sea that hindered us. Most women would have been
terrified at it, but Mizpah seemed to have no thought of fear. We
pressed on doggedly. There was danger ahead, I knew,--a very serious
danger, which would tax all my skill to overcome. But the danger
behind us was the more menacing. I felt that there was nothing for it
but to face the storm and force a passage around the cape. This
accomplished,--if we could accomplish it,--I knew our pursuers would
not dare to follow.
About sundown, though the enemy had drawn perceptibly nearer, I
concluded that we must rest and gather our strength. I therefore ran
in behind a little headland, the last shelter we could hope for until
we should get around the cape. There we ate a hearty meal, drank from
a tiny spring, and lay stretched flat on the shore for a quarter of an
hour. Then, after an apprehensive look at the angry sea, and a prayer
that was earnest enough to make up for some scantness in length, I
cried:--
"Come now, comrade, and be brave."
"I am not afraid, Monsieur," she answered quietly. "If anything
happens, I know it will not be because you have failed in anything that
the bravest and truest of men could hope to do."
"I think that God will help us," said I. That some one greater than
ourselves does sometimes help us in such perils, I know, whatever
certain hasty men who speak out of a plentiful lack of experience may
declare to the contrary. But whether this help be a direct
intervention of God himself, or the succour of the blessed saints, or
the watchful care of one's guardian spirit, I have never been able to
conclude to my own satisfaction. And very much thought have I given to
the matter by times, lying out much under the stars night after night,
and carrying day by day my life in my hands. However it might be, I
felt sustained and comforted as we put out that night. The storm was
now so wild that it would have been perilous to face in broad daylight
and with a strong man at the bow paddle. Yet I believed that we should
win through. I felt that my strength, my skill, my sureness of
judgment, were of a sudden made greater than I could commonly account
them.
But whatever strength may have been graciously vouchsafed to me that
night, I found that I needed it all. The night fell not darkly, but
with a clear sky, and the light of stars, and a diffused glimmer from
the white crests of the waves. The gale blew right on shore, and the
huge roar of the surf thundering in our ears seemed presently to blunt
our sense of peril. The great waves now hung above us, white-crested
and hissing, till one would have said we were in the very pit of doom.
A moment more, and the light craft would seem to soar upward as the
wave slipped under it, a wrenching turn of my wrist would drive her on
a slant through the curling top of foam, and then we would slide
swiftly into the pit again, down a steep slope of purplish blackness
all alive with fleeting eyes of white light. The strain upon my wrist,
the mighty effort required at each wave lest we should broach to and be
rolled over, were something that I had never dreamed to endure. Yet I
did endure it. And as for the brave woman in the bow, she simply
paddled on, steadily, strongly, without violence, so that I learned to
depend on her for just so much force at each swift following crisis.
For there was a new crisis every moment,--with a moment's grace as we
slipped into each succeeding pit. At last we found ourselves off the
cape,--and then well out into the open Strait, yet not engulfed. A
little,--just as much as I durst, and that was very little,--I shifted
our course toward south. This brought a yet heavier strain upon my
wrist, but there was no help for it if we would hope to get beyond the
cape. How long we were I know not. I lost the sense of time. I had
no faculty left save those that were in service now to battle back
destruction. But at last I came to realize that we were well clear of
the cape, that the sound of the breakers had dwindled, and that the
time had come to turn. To turn? Ay, but could it be done?
It could but be tried. To go on thus much longer was, I knew,
impossible. My strength would certainly fail by and by.
"Comrade," said I,--and my voice sounded strange, as if long
unused,--"keep paddling steadily as you are, but the moment I say
'change,' paddle _hard_ on the other side."
"Yes, Monsieur!" she answered as quietly as if we had been walking in a
garden.
I watched the approach of one of those great waves which would, as I
knew, have as vast a fellow to follow upon it. As soon as we were well
over the crest I began to turn.
"Change!" I shouted. And Mizpah's paddle flashed to the other side.
Down we slanted into the pit. We lay at the bottom for a second,
broadside on,--then we got the little craft fairly about as she rose.
A second more, and the wind caught us, and completed the turn,--and the
next crest was fairly at my back. I drew a huge breath, praising God
and St. Joseph; and we ran in toward the hollow of the land before us.
That part of the coast was strange to me, save as seen when passing by
ship; but I trusted there would be some estuary or some winding, within
which we might safely come to land.
The strain was now different, and therefore my nerves and muscles felt
a temporary relief; but it was still tremendous. There was still the
imminent danger of broaching to as each wave-crest seized and twisted
the frail craft. But having the wind behind me, I had of course more
steerage way, and therefore a more instant and effective control. We
ran on straight before the wind, but a few points off; and with
desperate anxiety I peered ahead for some hint of shelter on that wild
lee shore. Mizpah, of course, knew the unspeakable strain of wielding
the stern paddle in such a sea.
"Are you made of steel, Monsieur?" she presently asked. "I can hardly
believe it possible that the strength of human sinews should endure so
long."
"Mine, alas, will not endure much longer, comrade," said I.
"And what then?" she asked, in a steady voice.
"I do not know," said I; "but there is hope. I think we have not been
brought through all this for nothing."
The roar of the breakers grew louder and louder again, as we gradually
neared the high coast which seemed to slip swiftly past on our right
hand. It was black and appalling, serried along the crest with tops of
fir trees, white along the base with the great gnashing of the
breakers. As we ran into the head of the bay, with yet no sign of a
shelter, the seas got more perilous, being crowded together and broken
so that I could not calculate upon them. Soon they became a mad
smother; and I knew my strength for this bout had but little longer to
last.
"The end!" said I; "but we may win through! I will catch you when the
crash comes." And some blind prayer, I know not what, kept repeating
and repeating in the inward silence of my soul. New strength seemed
then to flow upon nerve and sinew,--and I descried, almost ahead of us,
a space of smooth and sloping beach up which the seas rushed without
rock to shatter them.
"This is our chance," I shouted. A wave came, smoother and more whole
than most, and paddling desperately I kept awhile upon the crest of it.
Then like a flash it curled thinly, rolled the canoe over, and hurled
us far up on the beach. Half blinded, half stunned, and altogether
choking, I yet kept my wits; and catching Mizpah by the arm, I dragged
her violently forward beyond reach of the next wave. Dropping her
without a word, I turned back, and was just in time to catch the
rolling canoe. It, too, I succeeded in dragging to a place of safety;
but it was so shattered and crushed as to be useless. The muskets,
however, were in it; for I had taken care to lash them under the bars
before leaving the shelter of the inlet.
The remnants of the canoe I hauled far up on the beach, and then I
returned to Mizpah, who lay in utter exhaustion just where I had
dropped her, so close to the water's edge that she was splashed by the
spray of every wave.
"Come, comrade," I said, lifting her gently. "The saints have indeed
been kind to us." But she made no reply. Leaning heavily upon me, and
moving as if in a dream, she let me lead her to the edge of the wood,
where the herbage began behind a sort of windrow of rocks. There,
seeing that the rocks shut off the wind, I released her, and dropping
on the spot, she went at once to sleep. Then I felt myself suddenly as
weak as a baby. I had no more care for anything save to sleep. I
tried to pluck a bunch of herbage to put under Mizpah's head for a
pillow; but even as I stooped to gather it, I forgot where I was, and
the tide of dreams flowed over me.