THE LEAPING OF THE WALL
Another night of tempest succeeded, diversified by stinging showers of
hail and sleet. I believe neither captain nor mate left the bridge the
whole night long, for the floe and berg began to grow around us, tack as
we would. But the deeper we got into the heart of the multitude of
island ice, the less grew the force of the wind. I rose the next morning
after a few hours’ restless slumber to find us floating gently in a
calm, untroubled sea, while around us, as far as eye could reach, the
white pack stretched in uneven masses to the horizon.
We dawdled down the broad lanes of black water between, the little puffs
of wind coming fitfully from behind the sheltering masses. Our range of
vision got less and less as these increased in size, and about mid-day
the sun came out gloriously, and Waller was able to take an observation.
He came toward me, smiling doubtfully, after he had worked out his
calculations in the little chart-room.
“M. Lessaution will be enchanted, my lord,” said he. “We are within a
few miles of our original starting-place. It is an extraordinary thing
that we should have been driven back so exactly on the line we had come.
I have only steered by the stars and dead reckoning.”
“He may be pleased enough,” I answered, “but he’ll be entirely alone in
his gratification. Do you mean to say we’ve got to wrestle back all
those weary miles? What desperate luck!—but just the usual kind that
dogs my footsteps. Why, it’ll take weeks to do it sailing.”
“I’m afraid it would,” agreed the captain, “and that’s why I have
another proposal to make. Since we got among the ice, I have been
interviewing Mr. Eccles. He thinks that if we were in a dead calm, that
he could get the split of the propeller-shaft rivetted, and made tight
enough for half-steam. I would suggest, my lord, that we lie to and let
him have a try.”
“But not in this ice,” I objected; “I don’t want a repetition of
yesterday’s performance with a different climax. Suppose one of these
great bergs turns turtle?”
“I have thought of that,” replied Waller, “but I have a plan. If you
remember we were under the lee of some islands when we left on our
cruise north. I think I can find them again, my lord. We could probably
make them an ice-free harbor.”
“Why, certainly, then,” said I at once, glad to snatch at half a chance
of curtailing a voyage that could be nothing but misery for me. “Search
them out, captain, and let Mr. Eccles do his utmost.”
He went back to the wheel, and began to nose our bows to starboard,
taking advantage of every breath to slip delicately from pool to pool.
About an hour later a thin column of smoke showed suddenly as we rounded
the flank of a mighty berg, and there, a short mile to port, the
familiar islands showed up, gray and haggard in the sunlight, as we had
left them eight or nine stormy days before.
Lessaution had joined me by now, his little eyes agleam with pleasure.
As he recognized his surroundings, he turned and seized my hand.
“This time we shall not fail,” he declaimed ecstatically. “Before
twenty-four hours are over, I shall have scaled the cliffs that keep the
mystery of the South. I—Emil Saiger Lessaution—I proclaim it.”
“My good sir,” I said, “you’ll have to be quick about it. We only stay
here for repairs. You don’t mean to say you imagined we were still
pursuing our quest? You certainly are a pretty sanguine personage, if
you did.”
“M. de Heatherslie,” replied the little man with dignity, “do you think
that I have such little consideration for the distressed ladies of this
party, that I would keep them a moment longer than necessary from
returning where they can obtain what is needful for their comfort? No.
But I have questioned the good Eccles, who assures me that not less than
forty-eight hours will be necessary to effect his work upon his engines.
By then I shall have accomplished my desire, and will be able to show
you such proofs that after we have landed the ladies at the Falklands,
you will retrace your course here and pursue this adventure with me. But
to think that I wish to inconvenience the ladies by a single instant!—I
who worship the sex from the bottom of my heart!” and he twirled his
little mustaches fiercely.
I did not attempt to answer these chivalric sentiments, and we drifted
into other by-ways of conversation amicably enough. The _Racoon_ wound
along the irregular canals amid the pack, and finally swung under the
overhanging shadow of the summits.
The isles were high and sugarloaf-like, with great hollows on the flank
that faced the shore cliffs not a mile away. We threw the lead in the
channel between them and the cliff wall, and about the centre found
fourteen fathoms. Here we dropped anchor.
Great lean rocks ran up from the water’s edge in buttressing ribs,
crowning the gaunt summits. Here and there deep rifts showed in their
sides. Curious snake-like twistings wound about them. Scales of molten
stones lapped over and about each other wherever a resting-place was
found. It did not need the black column of smoke that pillared up into
the sky to inform me that these were volcanoes.
That day was given up to tidying the ship, lashing up what had run
adrift of our various impedimenta about the saloon and smoke-room, and
making things ship-shape generally.
About noon the ladies appeared, bright, smiling, and cheerful. Gwen met
me with the friendliest interest and unconcern. She was dressed in a
neat skirt of sail-cloth, supplied by the carpenter, or rather the
material for the same. She and her sister, I found, had been fashioning
these in the privacy of their cabins, the dresses in which they came
aboard being practically ragged pulp. They had wound thin strips of
blanket about their shoulders most becomingly, and now wore these
impromptu toilets before us by no means abashed, and with the certainty
of producing a good impression undisturbed upon their faces.
We hastened to congratulate them upon their appearance.
They bowed their thanks, and began to ply us with unceasing questions.
They were full of curiosity about their whereabouts, and their chances
of a speedy return to civilized regions. I assured them that no efforts
of mine should be wanting to swiftly bring them back to the known world
at the earliest opportunity, but explained the situation with regard to
the engine.
Gwen flashed a look at me I hardly understood.
“You seem anxious to get rid of us,” she said. “Is our dishevelled
appearance too much for you? We’ll endeavor not to obtrude our society
upon you more than necessary.”
She looked so adorable as she said it, with the little curls just
leaning down her forehead to peep into her blue eyes, that I could have
seized her in my arms then and there, and dared Denvarre to so much as
think of her again. As things were, being at the end of the nineteenth
century, and not in the middle of the tenth, I smiled apathetically, and
answered with as much emotion in my voice as there is in a phonograph:
“It must be very uncomfortable for you, I fear. No clothes, no luxuries,
no anything.”
“Neither Vi nor I are made of Italian glass,” she answered quaintly,
“and mother’s tougher than she looks. Truth to tell, I was getting bored
on the yacht. This sort of thing suits me excellently—I adore adventure.
But I’m sorry, of course, if our coming has put you about,” and she
smiled again, happily.
I suppose it is the nature of the sweetest of women to be merciless at
times. I reflected this in excuse as I gazed seawards without finding an
answer, and thrusting back the words that came bubbling to my lips. The
wretchedness must have been apparent in my face, for she suddenly
changed the conversation as we strolled forward.
“So you’re no longer Captain Dorinecourte?”
“Alas, no,” said I forgetfully.
She turned quickly to look at me with surprise.
“Good gracious! Lord Heatherslie, aren’t you glad to have the title?”
“I only meant,” I stammered, “that there have been many responsibilities
and—er—disappointments accumulating for me since I succeeded.”
“But surely that’ll soon be over,” she queried. “It’s only a matter of
lawyer’s business, is it?”
“They’re terrible people when they get you in their hands,” said I
vaguely. “But tell me how you have enjoyed your trip so far.”
She looked back at me very straight. “I told you when we left London I
shouldn’t enjoy it, and I can’t honestly say I have. The monotony got to
be terrible.”
I had meant all references to what had happened in London to be
forgotten. I did not think it kind to refer to them again in this
outspoken way.
“But—but surely Denvarre and—and Garlicke made it pleasant for you,” I
hazarded. “It must have made it awfully nice for you having them all the
time.”
“Of course they have been attentive, if that’s what you mean,” she said,
with a slightly contemptuous inflection in her voice. “But one can get
tired of even undiluted attention. I’m sure I’ve done my best to quarrel
with Lord Denvarre several times, but he’s far too polite.”
I didn’t know what to think. Did she openly mean to give me to
understand that she had accepted Denvarre for the position? Or were they
simply indulging in the luxury of their first quarrel? Or was it just
her off-hand way of speaking of him? I found no answer.
“Now, if we’d only had the prophetic instinct and known that you were
going to start on this delightful trip, we should have waited and come
with you. You’d have invited us, wouldn’t you?”
I smiled to myself as I reflected that Lady Delahay would have found an
extremely polite but explicit refusal to any such proposal. But I
answered courteously:
“It would have been too great a privilege. But my luck never permits
arrant good fortune like that to be mine.”
She looked at me curiously, and sighed a little restlessly, turning away
to watch the cloud of mollies that skipped about our stern. There was
silence between us for a minute.
“I prefer captains to peers,” she said at last, with a little laugh. “I
don’t think you’re improved.”
“It’s a prejudice you’ll have to overcome, won’t you?” said I.
“Denvarre——” but as I mentioned his name he came on deck, and spying us,
walked up and joined us.
The two smiled into each other’s eyes pleasantly enough, but—but
something was wanting. Gwen never had been what one would call a
sentimental girl, though at times—but that was ages ago. I left them to
stroll off together, while I marched forward again, musing over the very
level-headed way in which she treated her engagement and her _fiancé_.
For I had imagined she would look at the matter differently. We had been
such old—well, comrades, that I’d expected to be told of her happiness,
and by her own lips too. It would have prevented all the sense of
strangeness that had somehow got between us. I shouldn’t have whined or
referred to old times—she must have known that. I could only repeat to
myself that women were beyond my finite understanding, and continued to
take a miserable and utterly useless pleasure in the fact that at any
rate she did not worship the ground that Denvarre trod.
Gerry was smoking a gloomy pipe over the stern, and I joined him. He
kept his face studiously averted from mine, and I had to lay my hand
upon his shoulder before I spoke.
“Poor old chap,” said I sympathetically. “Have they broken it to you?”
“The old woman has,” he answered, adding a crisp execration which should
never be used in connection with a lady.
“Well,” said I, trying to look into his eyes, “it’ll soon be over, old
man. If Eccles can get steam, we’ll be back at the Falklands in ten
days’ time. And we must buck each other up,” I added, trying to be
cheerful.
“I didn’t think it of Vi,” burst out the poor lad with an air of
desperate aggrievement. “Not that I believe she cares the flick of a
finger for him now. It’s that old hag of a mother that’s done it.”
“My dear boy,” said I, “we mustn’t put _too_ stupendous a value on our
fascinations. Denvarre and his brother are good men all through. And you
and I are detrimentals—or at any rate I only shave it by a short head,”
I added, as I thought of the collection which was to bring in a tidy
trifle.
Poor Gerry. He just let himself loose upon the word. He cursed wealth
and all that wealth brings with a sudden burst of passion that I had
never dreamed he was capable of. He railed at Lady Delahay; he condemned
the name of Garlicke to the lowest pit; he anathematized every usage of
polite Society and every useless luxury that we are bred to consider a
necessity, showing the aptest reasons for considering them the true
creators of every vice and cruelty that is perpetrated beneath the sun.
He swore in a very storm of passionate bitterness, leaving no object of
his hatred untouched. He went into comminatory details which were almost
superfluous. And I let him rave.
For, mark me, there are masculine moods where oaths and curses are the
equivalent of feminine tears, and in neither case should you attempt to
restrain them if they are the culmination of some great tribulation.
They sweep out the bitterness in their stream, and though the ache be
left in the wound, it has no longer a poisoned smart. And that is why
Gerry shook my hand a few minutes later, and let less haggard lines
pervade his countenance, while he confessed himself a fool. And in this
worthier frame of mind I led him aft, and into the conversation of his
fellows.
As the dusk drew down—and you must recollect it was nearly mid-summer in
those latitudes, and the nights were but an hour or two long—we managed
to get some sort of dinner. The cook evolved a meal which he would have
considered unbefitting his dignity at another time, but which we ate on
our cracked plates with great appreciation. For the first time for over
a week we fed at a steady table, and enjoyed the peaceable conversation
of our companions. Gerry, under the influence of coffee and chartreuse,
even rose to the lengths of chaffing poor little Lessaution.
The latter had spent the afternoon in unavailing effort. Supplied with a
boat and crew he had set forth to fend along the great rock wall which
seemed to stretch unbroken to the horizon, seeking, but with an utter
want of success, for a means of ascending the same. And the poor little
chap was taking it most seriously.
Gerry thought fit to twit him on his futile adventure, and he was
furious as a trapped rat. It was suggested to him that the quest was,
and ever would be, hopeless, and that we had better give it up before we
all got cricks in our necks staring up precipices we were never destined
to climb. We declared our conviction that we were in the wrong spot
altogether—the responsibility for our position rested in the first place
with the Professor, I should explain, who had worked out by some
intricate scheme of his own the probable route the storm-driven Mayans
must have taken—and that he must have entirely misjudged the wind, or
the currents, or something. Finally, that there could not possibly be
anything worth seeing if he did happen to claw up the barren crags.
The little _savant_ fell upon his adversary, foot, horse, and artillery.
He demonstrated that he was a disgrace to the name of Englishman, and
had of imagination no single jot. That it did not matter, in effect,
what such an unsportsmanlike rascal did think, for fortunately our
destinies lay with me—the good earl, let it be understood—who would be
guided in this matter by the dictates of sense and practicality. He
himself would only give up the quest with his breath, and staked his
reputation on his success. Cowards might do and say what they pleased.
Finally, in an access of irritation he flung from us to go on deck and
compose his vehement mortification with a cigar, and to gaze hungrily at
the cliffs which mocked him with cold white serenity.
Small talk and amiability were the order of the hour. Induced by our
fervent representation, Gwen even went to the piano and enlivened these
desolate solitudes with a song or two. We were settling into a
thoroughly pleasant evening, though amongst us two hearts were still
throbbing lonelily.
Suddenly a shrill yell resounded from above. There was the sound of
hurried footsteps on the companion, and Lessaution burst back into our
midst. His eyes were agleam, his hair stuck up like quills in his
excitement. He bellowed at us.
“The ice goes, the ice goes!” he hallooed. “It goes, it disappears, it
draws itself off. The sea runs away. There will be nothing—nothing at
all. You shall see. We sink to the bottom; no water shall remain at all.
Name of a pipe! what is to become of us?”
Without exception we all jostled at his heels as he turned and fled up
on deck again, even old Lady Delahay being carried away by the
prevailing excitement, and when we all poured out of the companion-way,
it was a strange sight and no mistake that met our gaze.
The moon shone bright as day, almost, and lit up a scene of cold
splendor, the like of which I have never seen equalled. But the
strangeness of the matter lay in this. There was not a breath stirring;
indeed, a close, dense stillness lay heavy over the sea, but the waters
were pouring past our bows like a river in spate. They seethed against
our sides like the rush of a mill-stream, purring and rippling oilily.
On the bosom of the dark tide the floe-ice swirled along, crashing as it
charged our stem, and butting at our timbers thunderously. Berg thrust
at berg like the jostle round a street accident. The pack-ice split and
worked in masses one against the other, lump grinding on lump. The crash
of their striving was deafening. And at the tail of this turmoil came
open water unflecked by the slightest ripple, and pouring past our stern
in a steady, unfaltering swirl. Comparing great things with small, it
was exactly like the opening of a lock-sluice, and for a moment, in my
mind’s eye, the tangle of the bergs faded, and I thought of Cliveden
Woods and the gay parasols upon the river.
Our hands shook upon the deck-rails as we gaped upon this icy chaos and
the hurtle of the floe. The roar of the jostling ice, the ceaseless
surge of the current against the bow, the black persistence of the tide
flow—all these things seen under the glare—the scorching glare, I may
almost call it—of this pitiless moonlight, had an appearance of horrible
unreality. I pinched myself as it occurred to me that I might be
dreaming, and felt the resultant pain with sorrow.
The whole crew had mustered on deck, and were staring upon this wonder
with all their eyes. I strode to Waller’s side and fairly had to bawl
into his ear to make myself heard above the din of the fighting floes.
“What is it?” I screamed. “What are we to do?”
“Can’t say, my lord. Never saw the like before. Nothing we can do as
there’s no wind. Better get up anchor though,” and he beckoned to
Janson.
The donkey-engine sent a white puff or two up into the still air, and
the capstan began to complain as the chains crept through the
hawse-pipes. Eccles’s head appeared to announce that _one_ rivet was on
the collar he had fixed to the riven shaft, and he could venture on
twenty turns of the screw to the minute if virtually necessary. His
offer was accepted by Waller with effusion, and the screw began to churn
a slow, creamy wake upon the blackness. The last of the ice swung by and
whirled seaward, the clamor of its striving melting into the sluggish
beat of our lame propeller as we got way upon the boat. And thus we ran
landward for a length or two to find speed before we turned with the
heeling tide.
Suddenly—swift as the cap of a port-fire snaps—the white glare of the
moonbeams reddened, died, then leaped again to a flame glow. It wrapped
the whole expanse of rock and water in a flood of crimson. The sea
became blood. We spun round to face astern and see what this might be.
We saw—as it seemed—a preposterous, Titanic travesty of a Crystal Palace
firework exhibition. So near did the similitude run, that we listened
almost with confidence for the following yawn of applause. The islands
behind us were aflame with pyrotechnic devices.
They were swathed in a cloak of fiery mist, wherein great streams of
falling fire darted headlong to the sea. On the summit of the central
peak rose a monstrous tower of spuming, flaring, heaven-smiting flame,
vomited forth as by convulsions from an inner furnace, and this roared
with thunderous echoes in the very heart of the hill—echoes that sprang
and smote themselves in deafening chorus from crag to crag, booming
across the smooth surface of the flood that bore down upon the isles
devouringly.
Hell itself was spouting forth. On the crumbling heights the flames
danced in wanton, merciless hunger. They toyed in terrible mockery with
their own reflection in the swift-tided sea. They shook with their
fierce spasms the bursting rocks. Before them the granite dissolved into
a very paste. And over all crept slowly, gently, irresistibly, a fog of
rising steam, where the boiling lava met the ice-strewn ocean, wrapping
the torn wounds in the cliff-side as in a soft lint upon their
bleedings. Across this veil the shudders of the rending cliff played in
ruddy reflections, rippling across it like searchlight rays as the hot
molten matter gouted from the crags.
For a second or two no one spoke, dwelling silently upon the grim wonder
of it. Then a sob of terror broke across the tension of the stillness,
and Lady Delahay sank to the deck. I raised her quickly, and placed her
in a deckchair. Then I looked round me.
On my right Gerry, Denvarre, and Lessaution were clutching the rail
before them in stiff, constrained attitudes. The responsive emotions
worked across their faces as they watched the travail of the peak. As
some gaping fissure spued up a froth of vivid flame, their lips parted
in automatic unison to the sundering stone. Vi Delahay, stretching an
unconscious arm, groped for something tangible to rest upon, and found
Gerry’s hand. One could trace the train of thought by which she
buttressed her agitated soul in thus finding support for her body. Gerry
remained unconscious of the honor done him. Garlicke and Janson,
silhouetted against the red gleam of sea and fire, stood with mouths
agape, hands on hips, and eyes that stared unwinkingly—intentness
personified. Waller and Rafferty, their grasp still upon the wheel,
gazed over their shoulders into the crimson distance behind them,
heedless of their charge, rigid as men paralyzed. The crew, distributed
each at his post where surprise had found and stiffened him, looked like
so many mummies. Just in front of me, Lady Delahay, sunk upon her chair
in a disordered heap, covered her face with her palms. I was beginning
to peer round me uneasily for the one face I missed.
A gentle pressure upon my shoulder showed me Gwen at my side. She was
facing the glare, one hand clenched upon her bosom, the other
unknowingly poised upon my arm. Her little nostrils were dilated, her
face was aglow, excitement was dancing in her eyes. She never turned or
stirred as I edged closer, sliding my hand dishonorably under her palm.
Thus stood we all, agape, waiting, staring, wondering.
Suddenly the giant column swung sideways, rushed skyward again, and then
twisted itself into knots and coronals of ravening fire. As if in agony
it bowed and contorted itself seaward, and the roar of its anguish sped
across the ripples toward us with the shock of an Atlantic gust. It was
a bellow wrung from the tortured throat of the very earth.
A sigh burst from Gwen’s lips, and her grasp tightened upon my thankful
fingers. She turned to face me, and I could read the new-born terror in
her eyes. Her other hand she thrust with a repellent gesture towards the
writhings of the crater, and rested her forehead ever so lightly upon
the lapels of my coat to shut out the hideous sight. Being only a man
and not a graven image my arm slipped into its appointed place. It
clasped her waist of its own accord, though the wicked thrill that ran
up it and settled very near my heart reminded me that I was exercising a
right that was another’s. But there was no getting it away by then.
Denvarre I could see still stood hypnotized into stillness with the rest
of our company, who all kept to their rigid, constrained attitudes.
Lessaution’s lips were beginning to twitch with words for which he could
find no voice, and a low moan broke from Lady Delahay. Of those who
dared to look, not one could remove his concentrated gaze.
Another crash, sharp and strident as the crack of a thunderbolt, smote
across the surface of the waters. It swelled with devilish crescendo
into a roar that threatened to burst our ear-drums. They throbbed and
palpitated to the limits of tension. A blare of yellow flame filled the
horizon. The island peak seemed to leap bodily heavenwards, and the
lower crags toppled and reeled swayingly. Streams of lava bubbled and
boiled from a thousand rifts and rendings of the rocks. The mass writhed
like a tormented monster. A yet greater cloud of steam arose, and
through it the fierce conflagration played and twined itself, till all
the sea and land seemed bathed in a fog of blood and fire. As the liquid
stone was vomited out in splashes, it rattled in a hissing patter round
us. The eternal turmoils of the lowest pit seemed loose.
One more frightful shock and ear-splitting roar. Then a mountain seemed
to grow upon the bosom of the deep. Black and awesome it rose under that
flaming pall; silent, dark, and threatening it swung itself up from
ocean’s depths, screening from us by its awful stature the raging
destruction behind. High and yet higher it mounted and swelled and
rolled upon us, smooth and swart as midnight. Oily and crestless billows
rippled and webbed across it in festoons. The lurid reflections gleamed
upon it like the flicker of swords ashock. In a majesty of resistless
might it hung over us—a doom unavertable.
As the first slope of the hill of waters slid beneath our keel I tore
myself from my trance of fascination. I dashed forward and raised Lady
Delahay. With a kick I burst open the door of the companion and thrust
her through, turning desperately for Gwen. With the lurch of the rising
deck I staggered, slipped, and fell backward. My shoulder caught the
door and slammed it to. With an oath I scrambled up to clutch her
fiercely.
The whole scene was bright before me as I turned. Every soul on board
stood out in a clearness like the day. Against the mast stood Gerry, one
arm round it, one round Vi’s waist, while before the two of them
Garlicke and Lessaution had sprung, facing sternly the hill of death,
jealously valiant in their pride of race. To the left Janson and
Denvarre still held the rail, staring aft with wide, fascinated eyes.
Waller and Rafferty at the wheel stood expectant, their shoulders
squared to meet and give to the coming shock. The crew, distributed here
and there in two and threes, were bracing themselves against the
deck-house, mast, or funnel. In the utter quiet the last few wreaths of
steam from the engine died circling into the still air.
Up, up we staggered, and little whirls and boils from the under-current
shot creamy and foam-flecked to the surface. Up—still rising fast, as
the billows broke suddenly from the calm, and chased each other over its
heaving bosom. Up yet again, and the red glow of the volcanoes beat no
longer upon the faces of the unconquered cliffs before us, but upon
their very summits, and upon the wide waste of emptiness behind.
Then as the full surge of the reeling ridge of ocean swept us forward,
the crown of the topmost rollers broke aboard. With a crash it roared
white and foaming along our decks, and in a trice we were carried in a
huddle of men and splintered spars into the deep bay of the forward
bulwarks. There, bruised and speechless, breathless, with limbs entwined
in limbs, and ropes and timbers woven and splayed about our bodies, we
lay helpless as kittens drowning in a bucket, and the ship shot forward
upon the head of the great ridge-wave straight for the cruel precipice
of granite. Without a hope and stunned beyond struggling we waited for
the final crash and oblivion.
As we charged along that wild race into eternity, the great crags that
five minutes before had hung mockingly above our heads sank below us,
and we rode high above their cringing heads.
We realized as in a moment, that the growing bulk of billows would lift
us cleanly over them. A hundred yards more at speed, and the cliffs were
gone, and a broad wilderness of waters swarmed over their crannies, and
into the rocky void beyond. As by a miracle the skirting waves that ran
before us filled the dry plain, and with half the weight of the
sea-torrent still behind us we shot out on to the bosom of this sudden
lake.
Like an arrow we swung across its turbid shallows, charging toward the
far side, where it was bounded by a second terrace of sheer stone. The
foremost waves smote the rock face full. Charging back, their defeated
fury met and foamed around us, catching us before we reached the cruel
reefs. The incoming and out-flowing surges sprang together almost
beneath our keel, and we tossed and reeled from one to the other in the
final throb of the great convulsion. Then the fighting breakers spread
abroad. Each spent its dying force upon its neighbor, and ere we could
extract ourselves from the mass of wreckage that wedged us in below the
bulwarks, the yacht was swinging masterless and idle upon a rippling,
white-flecked lagoon, showing less turmoil than a mid-June day can raise
on Windermere.