"Oh, it was done beautiful--_beautiful_!"
Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the
current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars
being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it
held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that
which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing
right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed
the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest
impulse to do _something_, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr.
Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots
stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
"She'll not make it!" somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was
down to--
"Eight-and-a-half!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... Seven-and--"