ADRIFT IN A DORY.
For a long time Olly could see the boys by the light of their camp-fire,
excepting when the tops of the rolling billows hid them from view.
Although too far off at any time to recognize his friends, he made out
snatches of the song then in vogue in his neighborhood; and he believed the
camping party to be Frog-End boys who had come to the beach for kelp.
Sometimes they passed between him and the fire; and finally they stood or
crouched around it, as the wavering flames died down to a bright-red glow
on the shore. To see them so near and so happy--it seemed to him that
everybody was happy who was not paddling desperately in a frail skiff,
against a relentless wind--to hear them singing and shouting, so wholly
unconscious of him in his distress, was intolerable agony.
"Oh, why can't they hear?" he exclaimed, in a voice to the last degree
hoarse with calling for help. "Why couldn't they look this way once? Now it
is too late!"
He was by that time greatly exhausted; for when not signaling and calling,
he had been making frantic efforts to paddle the dory against the wind. At
first he had used the oar-handle, but he found it wholly ineffectual. Then
he had torn up one of the thwarts, but it was too short and too clumsy for
his purpose; and though for a time he seemed to make headway, the distance
from the shore was steadily increasing.
If he could have held the boat in its course, as with a pair of oars, he
might have made progress even with that unwieldly paddle. But he lost time
and strength in shifting it from side to side; and, spite of all he could
do, the wind and the waves would now and then give the light, veering skiff
a turn, and he would suddenly find himself paddling out to sea! However,
those efforts prevented him from being blown speedily out of sight of land.
And when the boys on the beach, after due preparation, stuck their ears of
green corn on the sharpened ends of sticks and roasted them in the fire, he
still kept the little group in view. He had no doubt that they were cooking
their supper. No wonder he wept with despair at the contrast of that
cheerful scene with his own terrible situation!
The fire faded to a red eye of burning coals; all other objects grew
indistinct, excepting the black outline of the woods against the soft
evening red of a rift in the sky, and one pure star brightening in those
ethereal depths. Another starry beam, which he could plainly discern, but
which was too low down for a star, Olly knew must be a light in one of the
upper windows of the boarding-house.
Was it in Mr. Hatville's room? Had he returned and discovered the loss of
his watch? And could poor Olly hope ever to make restitution and
explanations? Suppose he should indeed be lost at sea! Would it not be
believed that he had yielded to temptation and had purposely run away with
the watch?
[Illustration: "HE MADE FRANTIC EFFORTS TO PADDLE THE DORY AGAINST THE
WIND."]
The danger his life was in was enough for the wretched boy, without this
fear for his reputation. He thought of his folks at home,--his mother and
sisters, for his father was dead,--and he wondered if they would believe
him capable of a folly so much greater than that he had in mind when he so
innocently (as it seemed to him then, but not now) borrowed the bright
bauble! And what would Amy Canfield think?
All vanity had been killed in him from the moment he found himself in
actual peril. It made him sick at heart to remember the satisfaction he had
so lately felt in his new clothes. He no longer drew the watch proudly from
his pocket; hardly once did he glance downward at the big seal and gold
guard hooked in the button-hole of his vest--a hated sight to him now.
When all hope of reaching the shore against such a wind was gone, he still
struggled to keep the dory within hailing distance of the yacht, when it
should come beating up from the northeast. But no yacht hove in sight; and
if it passed, it must have been under the shadow of the shore. Clouds
closed again over the one bright star and the patch of silver light in the
west. The utter desolation of night lay about him on the lonely, weltering
waters. All along the coast now he could see occasional lights--the lights
in happy dwellings; but on the seaward side, only a faint gleam showed the
line where sky and ocean met. There were no sounds but the ceaseless
turmoil of the billows, the frequent slapping of a wave under the
flat-bottomed boat, and his own fitful sobs.
His last hope lay in crossing the track of some coaster or fishing-craft
that might pick him up. But could that occur before morning? And could he
expect that his ill-managed dory would ride safely all night on the
increasing waves? The strong wind off shore, meeting the ocean swells, was
blowing up a heavy chop-sea that threatened a new danger. What a night was
before him, at the best!
Suddenly his hat blew off, and disappeared immediately on the black waves.
The distant sails he had seen at first had vanished as the swift night shut
down; but now he discerned two dim lights in different directions,
evidently far away.
He was gazing after them, and looking anxiously for nearer lights or sails,
when he was aware of a low, dark object just before him, rising from the
deep. What could it be?--with something white flashing upon it! And what
was the sound he heard?
"The Cow and Calf!" he exclaimed, with sudden excitement, almost as if he
had seen a friend.