The boys sang and the boys pulled, and there was a fierce straining on
that bow-line; but no soft words about "Kitty" had any effect on the
_Relentless_. It seemed as if this obdurate creature were moved by an
ugly jealousy of "Kitty," and drifted on and on.
"It's of no use!" declared Dick. "I move we untie our rope and go
ashore and let the old thing go. We have done what we could to get
ashore."
He did not say that he had done what he could to get the _Relentless_
adrift, and had fully succeeded. Dave did not twit him with the fact,
but he was not ready to abandon the schooner.
Some of the boys murmured regrets about their "things." They did not
want to forsake these.
"Well, boys," said Dick, with a boastful air, "I'll get you out of the
scrape somehow. We might go on deck again, and hold a council of war
and talk the situation over."
Any change was welcomed, and the boys scrambled on deck again. Dick was
the last of the climbing column.
"Hand that painter up here and I'll make it fast," said Dave. "Then
come up and we will talk matters over."
"Oh!" said Dick, who was half-way up the ladder, "I forgot to bring that
rope up."
He descended the ladder and reached out his foot to touch the boat, but
he could not find it! When he had left the boat, a minute ago, he gave
it unintentionally a parting kick, and--and--alas! The boat was now too
far from the schooner's side to be reached by Dick's foot.
"Get something!" he gasped. "Bring a--pole--and--get that boat!"
The boys scattered in every direction to find a--they did not know what,
that in some way they might reach after and capture that escaping boat.
Their excitement was intense but fruitless. There were now two vessels
adrift--a schooner and a dory--serenely floating in the still but strong
current, steadily moving seaward, and the moonlight that had been
welcomed only revealed to them more plainly the mortifying situation of
the party.
"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Dick.
Most of the boys looked very sober. Dave put his hands in his pockets
and whistled.
"Well, boys, don't you worry! I'll get you out of this in good fashion
yet," cried Dick. "We can't go far to sea, and then the tide will bring
us back again in the morning."
"Far to sea!" said Dab mockingly. "There's the lighthouse on the left,
and it looks to me as if we should hit the bar!"
The bar! The boys started. At the mouth of the river the sand brought
down from the yielding shores would accumulate, and it formed a bar
whose size and shape would annually change, but the obstacle itself
never disappeared. There it stretched in the navigator's way, seriously
narrowing the channel; and of how many catastrophes that "bar" had been
the occasion! The breakers above were soft and white, and the sand
below was yielding and crumbling; and yet just there how many vessels
had been tripped up by that foot of sand thrust out into the harbour!
The boys laughed and tried to be jolly, but no one liked the situation.
It was a very picturesque scene,--the moonlight silvering the sea, the
calmly-moving schooner and boat, that lighthouse like a tall, stately
candlestick lifting its quiet light; but, for all that, there was the
bar! Either the night-wind was growing very chilly, or the boys
shivered for another reason.
"Don't worry, fellows," said Dick, putting as much courage as possible
into his voice. "When this old thing hits, you see, we shan't drift
right on to the bar, but our anchor will catch somewhere on this side.
That will hold us. I can swim, and I'll just drop into the sea and make
for the light and get Toby Tolman's boat, and come and bring you off."
He then proceeded to hum "Reuben Ranzo;" but nobody liked to sing it,
and Dick executed a solo for this unappreciative audience.
"How--how deep is the water inside the bar?" said chattering Jimmy
Davis. He felt the cold night-air, and he shook as if he had an ague
fit.
"Pretty deep," solemnly remarked Dab Richards.
The musical hum by the famous soloist, Dick Pray, ceased; only the
breakers on the bar made their music.
Dick began to doubt seriously the advisability of dropping into that
deep gulf reputed to be inside the bar. It was now not very far to the
lighthouse, and the surf on the bar whitened in the moonlight and fell
in a hushed, drowsy monotone. People by the shore may be hushed by this
lullaby of the ocean, but to those boys there was nothing drowsy in its
sound; it was very startling.
"I--I--I--" said Jimmy.
"What is it, Jimmy?" asked Dave.
Jimmy did feel like wishing aloud that he could be at home, but he
concluded to say nothing about it. Steadily did the _Relentless_ drift
toward that snow-line in the dark sea.
"Almost there!" cried Dave.
"May strike any moment!" shouted Dab.
Yes, nearer, nearer, nearer, came the _Relentless_ to that foaming bar.
The boat had already arrived there, and Dave saw it resting quietly on
its sandy bed. Did he notice a glistening strip of sand beyond the
surf? He had heard some one in Shipton say that at very low tide there
was no water on portions of the bar. This fact set him to thinking
about his possible action. It now seemed to him as if the distance
between the stern of the vessel and the bar could not be more than a
hundred feet. The bow of the vessel pointed up river. She was going
"stern on." How would it strike--forcibly, easily?
[Illustration: "Nearer and nearer came the '_Relentless_' to that
foaming bar." _Page 43_]]
"Ninety feet now!" thought Dave. "Will the shock upset her, pitch us
out, or what?"
Sixty feet now!
"The bar looks sort of ugly!" remarked Johnny Richards.
Thirty feet now!
"Wish I was in bed!" thought Jimmy Davis.
Twenty feet now!
Had the schooner halted? The boys clustered in the bow and looked
anxiously over to the bar.
"Boys, she holds, I do believe," said Dave.
"All right!" shouted Dick--"all right! The anchor holds!"
It did seem an innocent, all-right situation: just the quiet sea, the
musically-rolling surf along the bar, the stately lighthouse at the
left, and that schooner quietly halting in the harbour.
"Now, boys," exclaimed Dick, "we can--"
"I thought you were going to swim to the lighthouse?" observed Dab.
"Oh, that won't be necessary now," replied Dick. "We are just masters of
the situation. The moment the tide turns we can weigh anchor and drift
back again just as easy! Be in our old quarters by morning, and nobody
know the difference. Old Sylvester himself might come down the river,
and he would find everything all right. Ha! ha!"
Dick's confidence was contagious, and when he proposed "Haul the
Bow-line," his companions sang with him, and sang with a will. How the
notes echoed over the sea! Such a queer place to be singing in!
"Mr. Toby Tolman," said Dick, facing the lighthouse, "we propose to wake
you up! Let him have a rouser. Give him 'Reuben Ranzo!'"
While they were administering a "rouser" to Mr. Toby Tolman, somebody at
the stern was dropping into the sea. He had stripped himself for his
swim, and now struck out boldly for the bar. Reaching its uncovered
sands he ran along to the boat, lying on the channel side of the bar and
not that of the lighthouse, leaped into the boat, and, shoving off,
rowed round to the bow of the schooner. There was a pause in the
singing, and Dick Pray was saying, "This place makes you think of
mermen," when Dab Richards, looking over the vessel's side, said, "Ugh!
if there isn't one now!"
"Where--where?" asked Johnny.
"Ship ahoy!" shouted Dave from the boat. "How many days out? Where you
bound? Short of provisions?"
"Three cheers for this shipwrecked mariner just arrived!" cried Dab.
And the hurrahs went up triumphantly in the moonlight. Dave threw up to
the boys the much-desired painter, and the runaway boat was securely
fastened.
"There, Dave!" said Dick, as he welcomed on deck the merman: "I was just
going after that thing myself, just thinking of jumping into the water,
but you got ahead of me. Somehow, I hate to leave this old craft."
"I expect," said Dab Richards, a boy with short, stubby black hair and
blue eyes, and lips that easily twisted in scorn, "we shall have such
hard work to get Dick away from this concern that we shall have to bring
a police-officer, arrest, and lug him off that way."
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Dick. "Couldn't be persuaded to abandon
this dear old tub."
"Well, boys, I'm going to the lighthouse as soon as I'm dressed," said
Dave.
There was a hubbub of inquiries and comments.
"What for?" asked Dick. "Ain't we all right?"
"I hope so; but I want to keep all right. I want to ask the
light-keeper--"
"But all we have got to do is to pull up anchor when the tide comes, and
drift back."
"Oh yes; we can drift back, but where? We can't steer the schooner. We
don't know what currents may lay hold of her and take her where we don't
want to go. There are some rocks with an ugly name."
"'Sharks' Fins!'" said Jimmy. "Booh!"
"What if we ran on to them?" said Dave. "We had better go and ask Toby
Tolman's opinion. He may suggest something--tell us of some good way to
get out of this scrape. He knows the harbour, the currents, the tides,
and so on. Any way, it won't do any harm to speak to him. I won't
bother anybody to go with me. Stay here and make yourselves
comfortable; I will dress and shove off."
When Dave had dressed and returned, he found every boy in the boat.
Dick Pray was the first that had entered.
"Hullo!" shouted Dave. "All here, are you? That's good. The more the
merrier."
"Dave, we loved you so much we couldn't leave you," asserted Dick.
"We will have a good time," said Dave. "All ready! Shove off! Bound
for the lighthouse!"
The old schooner was left to its own reflections in the sober moonlight,
and the boat slowly crept over the quiet waters to the tall lighthouse
tower.