is drawing us down to the southwest. But we must watch out. A few miles
farther on a current flows north and turns in a circle to the northwest.
This will sweep us away from Fakarava, and Fakarava is the place for the
Pyrenees to find her bed.”
“They can sweep all they da--all they well please,” Captain Davenport
remarked with heat. “We'll find a bed for her somewhere just the same.”
But the situation on the Pyrenees was reaching a culmination. The deck
was so hot that it seemed an increase of a few degrees would cause it to
burst into flames. In many places even the heavy-soled shoes of the
men were no protection, and they were compelled to step lively to avoid
scorching their feet. The smoke had increased and grown more acrid.
Every man on board was suffering from inflamed eyes, and they coughed
and strangled like a crew of tuberculosis patients. In the afternoon the
boats were swung out and equipped. The last several packages of dried
bananas were stored in them, as well as the instruments of the officers.
Captain Davenport even put the chronometer into the longboat, fearing
the blowing up of the deck at any moment.
All night this apprehension weighed heavily on all, and in the first
morning light, with hollow eyes and ghastly faces, they stared at one
another as if in surprise that the Pyrenees still held together and that
they still were alive.
Walking rapidly at times, and even occasionally breaking into an
undignified hop-skip-and-run, Captain Davenport inspected his ship's
deck.
“It is a matter of hours now, if not of minutes,” he announced on his
return to the poop.
The cry of land came down from the masthead. From the deck the land was
invisible, and McCoy went aloft, while the captain took advantage of the
opportunity to curse some of the bitterness out of his heart. But
the cursing was suddenly stopped by a dark line on the water which he
sighted to the northeast. It was not a squall, but a regular breeze--the
disrupted trade wind, eight points out of its direction but resuming
business once more.
“Hold her up, Captain,” McCoy said as soon as he reached the poop.
“That's the easterly point of Fakarava, and we'll go in through the
passage full-tilt, the wind abeam, and every sail drawing.”
At the end of an hour, the cocoanut trees and the low-lying land
were visible from the deck. The feeling that the end of the PYRENEES'
resistance was imminent weighed heavily on everybody. Captain Davenport
had the three boats lowered and dropped short astern, a man in each
to keep them apart. The Pyrenees closely skirted the shore, the
surf-whitened atoll a bare two cable lengths away.
And a minute later the land parted, exposing a narrow passage and the
lagoon beyond, a great mirror, thirty miles in length and a third as
broad.
“Now, Captain.”
For the last time the yards of the Pyrenees swung around as she obeyed
the wheel and headed into the passage. The turns had scarcely been made,
and nothing had been coiled down, when the men and mates swept back to
the poop in panic terror. Nothing had happened, yet they averred that
something was going to happen. They could not tell why. They merely
knew that it was about to happen. McCoy started forward to take up
his position on the bow in order to con the vessel in; but the captain
gripped his arm and whirled him around.
“Do it from here,” he said. “That deck's not safe. What's the matter?”
he demanded the next instant. “We're standing still.”
McCoy smiled.
“You are bucking a seven-knot current, Captain,” he said. “That is the
way the full ebb runs out of this passage.”
At the end of another hour the Pyrenees had scarcely gained her length,
but the wind freshened and she began to forge ahead.
“Better get into the boats, some of you,” Captain Davenport commanded.
His voice was still ringing, and the men were just beginning to move in
obedience, when the amidship deck of the Pyrenees, in a mass of flame
and smoke, was flung upward into the sails and rigging, part of it
remaining there and the rest falling into the sea. The wind being abeam,
was what had saved the men crowded aft. They made a blind rush to gain
the boats, but McCoy's voice, carrying its convincing message of vast
calm and endless time, stopped them.
“Take it easy,” he was saying. “Everything is all right. Pass that boy
down somebody, please.”
The man at the wheel had forsaken it in a funk, and Captain Davenport
had leaped and caught the spokes in time to prevent the ship from yawing
in the current and going ashore.
“Better take charge of the boats,” he said to Mr. Konig. “Tow one of
them short, right under the quarter.... When I go over, it'll be on the
jump.”
Mr. Konig hesitated, then went over the rail and lowered himself into
the boat.
“Keep her off half a point, Captain.”
Captain Davenport gave a start. He had thought he had the ship to
himself.
“Ay, ay; half a point it is,” he answered.
Amidships the Pyrenees was an open flaming furnace, out of which
poured an immense volume of smoke which rose high above the masts and
completely hid the forward part of the ship. McCoy, in the shelter of
the mizzen-shrouds, continued his difficult task of conning the ship
through the intricate channel. The fire was working aft along the deck
from the seat of explosion, while the soaring tower of canvas on the
mainmast went up and vanished in a sheet of flame. Forward, though they
could not see them, they knew that the head-sails were still drawing.
“If only she don't burn all her canvas off before she makes inside,” the
captain groaned.
“She'll make it,” McCoy assured him with supreme confidence. “There is
plenty of time. She is bound to make it. And once inside, we'll put her
before it; that will keep the smoke away from us and hold back the fire
from working aft.”
A tongue of flame sprang up the mizzen, reached hungrily for the lowest
tier of canvas, missed it, and vanished. From aloft a burning shred of
rope stuff fell square on the back of Captain Davenport's neck. He acted
with the celerity of one stung by a bee as he reached up and brushed the
offending fire from his skin.
“How is she heading, Captain?”
“Nor'west by west.”
“Keep her west-nor-west.”
Captain Davenport put the wheel up and steadied her.
“West by north, Captain.”
“West by north she is.”
“And now west.”
Slowly, point by point, as she entered the lagoon, the PYRENEES
described the circle that put her before the wind; and point by point,
with all the calm certitude of a thousand years of time to spare, McCoy
chanted the changing course.
“Another point, Captain.”
“A point it is.”
Captain Davenport whirled several spokes over, suddenly reversing and
coming back one to check her.
“Steady.”
“Steady she is--right on it.”
Despite the fact that the wind was now astern, the heat was so intense
that Captain Davenport was compelled to steal sidelong glances into the
binnacle, letting go the wheel now with one hand, now with the other, to
rub or shield his blistering cheeks.
McCoy's beard was crinkling and shriveling and the smell of it, strong
in the other's nostrils, compelled him to look toward McCoy with sudden
solicitude. Captain Davenport was letting go the spokes alternately with
his hands in order to rub their blistering backs against his trousers.
Every sail on the mizzenmast vanished in a rush of flame, compelling the
two men to crouch and shield their faces.
“Now,” said McCoy, stealing a glance ahead at the low shore, “four
points up, Captain, and let her drive.”
Shreds and patches of burning rope and canvas were falling about them
and upon them. The tarry smoke from a smouldering piece of rope at the
captain's feet set him off into a violent coughing fit, during which he
still clung to the spokes.
The Pyrenees struck, her bow lifted and she ground ahead gently to a
stop. A shower of burning fragments, dislodged by the shock, fell about
them. The ship moved ahead again and struck a second time. She crushed
the fragile coral under her keel, drove on, and struck a third time.
“Hard over,” said McCoy. “Hard over?” he questioned gently, a minute
later.
“She won't answer,” was the reply.
“All right. She is swinging around.” McCoy peered over the side. “Soft,
white sand. Couldn't ask better. A beautiful bed.”
As the Pyrenees swung around her stern away from the wind, a fearful
blast of smoke and flame poured aft. Captain Davenport deserted the
wheel in blistering agony. He reached the painter of the boat that lay
under the quarter, then looked for McCoy, who was standing aside to let
him go down.
“You first,” the captain cried, gripping him by the shoulder and almost
throwing him over the rail. But the flame and smoke were too terrible,
and he followed hard after McCoy, both men wriggling on the rope and
sliding down into the boat together. A sailor in the bow, without
waiting for orders, slashed the painter through with his sheath knife.
The oars, poised in readiness, bit into the water, and the boat shot
away.
“A beautiful bed, Captain,” McCoy murmured, looking back.
“Ay, a beautiful bed, and all thanks to you,” was the answer.
The three boats pulled away for the white beach of pounded coral, beyond
which, on the edge of a cocoanut grove, could be seen a half dozen grass
houses and a score or more of excited natives, gazing wide-eyed at the
conflagration that had come to land.
The boats grounded and they stepped out on the white beach.
“And now,” said McCoy, “I must see about getting back to Pitcairn.”