The captain, turning quickly, bellowed for all hands to come on deck.
When they were assembled below him he spoke. "Men, you have followed
me for many a voyage and I have always brought you safely home. Is it
not so?"
A good-humored and enthusiastic roar of assent came from the sailors.
Captain Blizzard began again.
"What lies ahead of us in the next few hours will not make good sense
to many of you. Nevertheless I ask for your instant help, and you
shall see what lies at the end of my orders when we reach that time.
Are you with me?"
"AYE!" cried the sailors, their faces close together below their
captain, and upturned to see him and catch every word. All but Zachary
Heigh, Chris noticed. Zachary remained sullen and apart, his arms
folded on his chest, taking no part in the enthusiasm of his
companions.
"Well and good," roared Captain Blizzard. "I thank you. Now crowd on
all the sail she will take, boys, for the _Venture_ follows hard upon
us!"
[Illustration]
Without a word the men sprang to work, darting up the masts and out
over the rigging like monkeys. Every bit of sail the _Mirabelle_
possessed bellied out on the night breeze, and Chris could feel the
ship leap under his feet as the additional canvas caught the wind and
the graceful ship surged forward.
Night fell before the men had finished and Chris and the Captain could
no longer see the sails of Claggett Chew's _Venture_.
The Captain turned to Chris. "It would be my advice, lad, to go below
and sleep for a bit. You too, Amos. I shall send Ned to awaken you
when land is sighted."
[Illustration]
This seemed good reasoning, and the two boys went below where they
snatched a few hours' sleep. It seemed only a minute to Chris from the
time he lay down in his hammock, knowing he was too excited to sleep,
until Ned Cilley was at his side with a lantern, bringing food for
Amos and himself.
"Best eat up, lads," Ned told them, "and join the Captain, sez he to
me, for land is just ahead and the Captain do be waiting you on the
bridge, Chris, me lad."
The food was bolted down in no time and Chris, feeling fresh and
alert, ran up to the warm darkness of the bridge.
To his surprise the usual lanterns were not lit; only a small shaded
light shed its rays on the compass near the wheel.
At his questioning look Captain Blizzard muttered: "Impossible to tell
how close behind the _Venture_ may be. We have come quickly, but they
have the faster ship. I have no wish to give them more clue than
necessary as to where we may be." He looked keenly toward the bow, his
hands clasped behind his back. "Land is off the starboard quarter, and
Abner Cloud is out on the bowsprit looking for the reef. We have
passed our anchorage--they expected us, or some other ship, for fires
were lit on shore. Sail has been taken in; we are going slowly and
will soon be there, by my reckoning."
His eyes grown used to the dark, Chris now saw that it was a
remarkably light night. There was no moon, but a myriad of stars gave
a clear pallid sheen to the sea. Chris, looking to his left, could
make out the blacker mass against the stars that was Tahiti. The
_Mirabelle_ was close inshore, and the scent of hot sand from the
beaches, of flowers and of plants, made Chris take many deep grateful
breaths.
"May I go forward and be with Abner?" he asked the Captain.
"Aye," replied that good man, for by this time Chris was as surefooted
as any sailor and for the last month or more had been clambering
barefoot in the rigging with the best of them. "Aye lad," the Captain
told him, "and hurry. Happen your eyes are sharper than Abner's. Sing
out when you spy the reef. We will heave to, and then God be with you,
my lad, to find us out the channel to the cove!"
Chris ran forward to the bow of the _Mirabelle_, and out along the
bowsprit where, at the tip, he could see the long form of Abner Cloud
stretched out at full length. They murmured a greeting and waited,
eyes straining ahead.
Then both saw the phosphorus gleam and fade, gleam and fade as the
waves broke over the coral. Eerie jade-green and white-gold, the
phosphorus shone in the starlight.
"Reef-ho!" sang out Abner, and the sound of his shout was echoed back
from the closeness of the shore in faint dangerous mockery.
"_Reef-ho!_"
"Reef-ho!" came a third time from the bridge, and then "Heave-ho!"
thundered Captain Blizzard. "Drop anchor, lads!"
Abner left his place to go back and lend a hand, and in his sudden
solitude Chris grasped a rope and swung down to the water.
A porpoise slipped away from the _Mirabelle_ and moved this way and
that to get its bearings. Then the mass of the reef to the left and
the hidden shelf of a second but obscured underwater reef to the right
made dark patches in the phosphorescence. Far below lay the ghostly
spread of sand, and the porpoise nosed its way forward.
The channel to the cove proved to be some five hundred yards long, and
it seemed no time before the porpoise passed from the shadow of the
trees at the shore into the starlit cup of the cove. Taking a turn
about in the enjoyment of flipping its fins and giving a leap or two,
the big fish then went back toward where the _Mirabelle_ hung
suspended on the glassy sea.
A boy it was that pulled himself up hand over hand along the anchor
rope and stood dripping sea water on the bridge before Captain
Blizzard.
"I've found the channel, sir," he said, abruptly conscious of his
importance from the admiring way in which Amos was staring at him.
"There's a dangerous shelf of coral that juts out on the port side--if
you let me go first, and the men man the boats and row her in, I think
we shall do it safely even in this light."
Captain Blizzard looked at him, his expression both serious and
trusting.
"Well lad, we do what we must, and you and I understand one another.
Ahoy there!" he roared down to the shadowy decks from which the black
spikes of masts rose high to break the sky. "Man the boats! We shall
tow the _Mirabelle_ to cover, for there's a channel here!"
[Illustration]
He turned to Chris as the sound of running feet and of the boats being
hoisted overboard came loudly in the stillness of the night.
"Now Christopher, my boy, do you go down and go over the side again,
and remember what we spoke of a few hours agone!"
The next half-hour was an exhausting one for poor Chris. It was an
impossibility for him to keep for long at a time, either his own, or
the shape of the porpoise. He had to enter the water under the eyes of
the sailors waiting with their oars poised above the sea, in the
shape they knew; Christopher Mason. But once he dived under, in order
to seek out the treacherous channel in the half-light, he needed his
fish's eyes and senses. He therefore would swim a few yards as a fish,
but had to surface again as himself in order to let the men see him,
and call: "The length of two boats, keeping to starboard, boys. Then
ease her over this way--to port."
So it went, almost foot by foot until the _Mirabelle_ was safe inside
the cove and turned broadside to the entrance. Then, and only then,
with the anchor safely dropped to the white sandy depths of this
hidden harbor, did Chris, tired to his very bones, climb up the ladder
and over the ship's side. There remained the camouflaging of the
_Mirabelle_, for the stars were fading and before long, dawn would
banish secrecy.
[Illustration]
But Captain Blizzard and Mr. Finney awaited Chris on deck. Captain
Blizzard had his hands clasped behind his back in his habitual
gesture, and as Chris stood before him swaying with fatigue, there was
a look on the Captain's face that Chris had never seen there before.
The usually cheerful, joking man was grave, while Mr. Finney, so sober
and forlorn as a rule, looked positively jubilant.
"My good lad," the Captain said, "you said you could do it, but truth
to tell, I doubted it from the bottom of my heart. Now that you have
succeeded where I am sure no other could have done as well, I find I
have no words of praise good enough for ye." He looked almost tenderly
at the tired boy. "I am proud of you, Christopher. You did a man's
task with a boy's body and mind. And it took a man's spirit, too."
Without further words the Captain of the _Mirabelle_ held out his
pudgy hand to hold Chris's in a steadying grip, and Mr. Finney swung
out his hand, his long face breaking into one of the rare smiles Chris
was ever to see on it.
"Now, me boy," thundered the Captain, "do you go to your well-deserved
rest. Depend upon it, we shall cover the ship with green until she
looks like the proverbial Christmas hall decked with boughs of holly,
as the song goes!" he added chuckling. "A little later in the day you
shall be called to see what you make of the result. And now, to bed
with ye both!" and he clapped Amos on the back.
Never had his hammock seemed more like a cloud to Chris than it did on
that night, nor was sleep ever more engulfing.