XVIII
BUOY OR BREAKER
Consternation seized Percy. Never before had he known Jim to acknowledge himself beaten. Their plight must be serious indeed.
The dory swung side to the sea and sank into the trough. A half-barrel of water slopped aboard. Percy bestirred himself. Setting the oar in the scull-hole, he brought the boat's head once more into the wind. He was not strong enough to drive her against it; but he could at least keep her pointed into the teeth of the gale and prevent her from swamping. He dropped to his knees, for it was too rough for him to keep his balance if he stood upright.
How far off was Tarpaulin? As he looked back a red glare sprang up northeast. Budge and Throppy had fired the driftwood beacon on Brimstone Point. Small good it would do Jim and himself to-night.
They could not reach the island with one oar, and it was now too dark for their friends on Tarpaulin to make out the drifting dory.
Percy began sculling frantically.
"Hi! Hi! Hulloo-oo!" he yelled. "Oh, Budge! Oh, Throppy! We're going to sea! Come out and get us!"
It was like shouting against a solid wall. His cries were whirled away by the gale. Presently he became silent, realizing that he was wasting his breath.
Rapidly the dory drifted seaward. The fire dimmed to a misty red glow. A smart shower burst, and great drops spattered over the dory.
Jim sat up. He turned his face toward the island, and Percy knew his eyes had caught the dying beacon. He said nothing; there was nothing to say. In a little while all was black, north, east, south, and west.
Then Jim spoke, and his voice was as calm and deliberate as if he were in the cabin on the island, instead of a mile to leeward, driving to sea before a norther.
"Well, Perce, we're in for it! I'm sorry I spoke so sharp when you broke that oar. It's an accident liable to happen to anybody. Let's take account of stock! We're in for a night and more on the water, and we want to do our best to keep on top of it, and not under it, until the gale blows itself out. The prospect isn't exactly rosy; still, it might be a blamed sight worse. We're in a good dory, and that's the best sea boat that floats."
"Aren't we likely to be picked up before morning?"
"Pretty slim chance. Everything small has scooted to harbor long before this. We haven't any light, and a vessel or steamer large enough to pay no attention to the storm would be as liable to run us down as to pick us up. So about the best we can hope for is to have everything give us a wide berth until daylight."
"Will the gale last as long as that?"
"Longer, I'm afraid. 'Most always we have one good, big norther in August that blows two or three days. I'm really the one to blame for getting us into this mess. I know the sea, and you don't. I ought to have had brains enough to stop on Seal Island. Well, it's no use crying over spilled milk. The only thing now is to try not to spill any more."
The rain was descending in torrents. Storm and night drew a narrow circle of gloom about the reeling boat.
Spurling tried to rise to his feet. The dory jumped like a bucking horse, and he caught the gunwale just in time to escape being pitched overboard.
"Jerusalem!" he gasped. "Guess I won't try that again! Hands and knees are good enough for me. Hold her, Perce! I'll throw out some of this water."
Kneeling in the flood that swashed from bow to stern, he bailed vigorously until the boat was fairly clear.
"No use wearing ourselves out trying to keep her head to it with the oar!" said he. "I'm going to rig a drug!"
Directly under Percy's arms, as he sculled, was a trawl-tub containing their purchases at Matinicus. These Jim tossed into the stern. Taking the tub, he crept forward. A lanyard of six-thread manila, put across double between holes in the top of its sides, formed a rope bridle or bail. To the middle of this bail Jim tied the thirty-foot painter with a clove hitch. Then he dropped the tub over the bow.
"Pull in your oar, Perce!" he called out.
Percy obeyed gladly. A heavy sea struck the dory. She reared, shot back, and started to swing sidewise. Then the "drug" caught her, and she seesawed again up into the wind and rode springily.
The tub, filled with water, and drifting on its side thirty feet before the bow at the end of the straightened-out painter, formed a floating anchor, which held the dory head to the wind and sea. Practically submerged, and offering the gale no surface to get hold of, it moved much more slowly than the high-sided boat, and so retarded its course.
Jim came crawling aft again.
"Guess that'll hold her!" he exclaimed. "I've strengthened the lanyard with some ground-line, and it ought to last us through the night. We'll be as snug as if we were in Sprowl's Cove, hey, Perce?"
Percy could hardly agree with him. The roaring, rain-shot blackness, roofed with murky clouds and floored with rushing surges, was not calculated to inspire confidence in a landsman. With every sea the dory leaped back several feet, until the straightened painter brought her up. Showers of spray flew over the boys. It was well both were clad in oilskins.
They were not entirely without light. The water was firing. Every breaking wave dissolved in phosphorescence. The tub before the bow was outlined in radiance; the whipping painter was transmuted to a rope of silver; and as the dory split the crashing rollers they streamed away in sparkles of ghostly flame. Even in their peril the boys could not help appreciating the weird beauty of the display.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" said Percy. "Say, Jim, how far south's the nearest land?"
"Somewhere around two thousand miles, I guess. Too far to interest us any. I think it's one of the West Indies."
The wind was growing stronger, the sea rougher. Now and then a young flood set both boys bailing, Jim with the bucket, Percy with the scoop.
"Won't do to let it gain too much on us," remarked Jim. "She can't sink; but if she should fill it'd be pretty uncomfortable."
The rain had ceased; the clouds did not hang so low. Suddenly Percy gave a whoop of joy.
"Look in the west!"
Not far above the horizon appeared a rift of clear blue sky, sown with stars. Longer and wider it grew. Other rifts added themselves to it, and in an unbelievably short time the entire heaven was swept clean. But somehow the wind seemed to blow harder than before.
"How soon will it calm down?" asked Percy.
Jim shook his head.
"Can't say! May be a dry blow for two days longer."
He looked eastward.
"What's that coming? Steamer?"
Sure enough it was. Below the white light on the masthead appeared and disappeared the red and green, obscured intermittently by the tossing waves. Soon they could be seen all the time. Percy began to grow excited.
"Suppose they'll pick us up?"
"Not a chance in a thousand. It's too rough for the lookout to spy our boat, and, even if the steamer should come close, we could never make her hear. She's either a tramp or an ocean liner from Halifax for Portland."
On she plowed unswervingly and majestically, straight toward them.
"I'm afraid she's coming too near for comfort," said Jim, anxiously. "She might run us down and never know it. Lots of fishermen have gone that way. Ship that oar in the scull-hole. I'm going to haul in the drug."
He lifted the trawl-tub aboard and sprang quickly aft.
"We'll know pretty quick whether she's likely to pass ahead or astern. We can't count on being seen. We've got to look out for ourselves."
Freed from its floating anchor, the dory bobbed wildly. Wielding his oar skilfully, Spurling held her bow to the north, ready to scull for the last inch, or to let her drop back, as the approach of the steamer might make it advisable.
Closer and closer came the big boat; her lights oscillated with pendulum-like regularity as she rolled on the heavy seas.
"She'll pass astern," was Jim's verdict. "Won't do to drift in front of her."
He sculled strongly, keeping an anxious eye on the threatening monster. Percy's hair bristled.
"Harder, Jim!" he shouted. "She's going to run us down! Steamer ahoy! Keep off! Keep off!"
The rushing foam smothered his cries. Meanwhile Spurling worked like a steam-engine. Two lives hung on his oar-blade.
As the knife-like stem sheared past, close astern, the green eye disappeared; the red glared menacingly down from the huge bulk looming overhead. Then the lofty black side swept by, flashing an occasional ray from a lighted port-hole. The screw gave them a sickening moment, but they soon tossed safely astern, breathing hard, eyes on the dwindling leviathan, wallowing westward.
Jim spoke first: "Close as they make 'em! I'm glad that's over!"
Percy agreed with all his heart. Jim had discovered that the tub was becoming a bit shaky, so he reinforced the lanyard, and strengthened the bottom by binding it with ground-line. Before long it was towing again in front of the bow, as good as new.
Hours passed, but the intensity of the gale did not slacken. The sea was frightfully rough. It kept the boys bailing continually.
Dawn broke at last. On the eastern horizon grew a pale light, against which the ragged, savagely leaping crests were silhouetted weirdly. It brightened to a crimson glow, and soon the sun was shooting its fiery arrows across the heaving, glittering waste.
The forenoon wore slowly on as they drifted steadily south. The water around the dory was alive with whirlpools. Gigantic green seas rushed down as if to overwhelm her, but she flirted her bow aloft and rode them stanchly.
Percy, glancing to starboard, saw a black fin cutting the slope of a watery ridge.
"Shark, Jim?"
"Yes. And there's another to port. They're looking for trouble. They'll stick by till we're out of this scrape or in a worse one."
He was right. The sun reached its zenith and began to descend, but still the black fins wove their ceaseless circles round the boat.
Jim had been scanning the sea, hand over his eyes.
"There's a schooner," he remarked, without enthusiasm.
Percy was all excitement.
"Where? Where?"
"Up there, two miles to windward. Double reefed and clawing west. She'd never see us in a thousand years, and if she did she couldn't do us any good. Forget her!"
The schooner inched her way imperceptibly under the horizon. The boys had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours; excitement had prevented them from feeling hungry. Now they came to a realization that they had stomachs, and they finished half the hard bread remaining in the bag.
"We'll save the rest," decided Jim. "May need it worse later than we do now."
Percy could easily have eaten twice his share, but he recognized the wisdom of Jim's decision. Both were very thirsty, but without a drop of fresh water aboard there was nothing to do but wait.
At four o'clock came disaster. The drug suddenly let go!
Round whirled the dory, side to the seas. Jim grabbed the oar and jammed it into the scull-hole, but before he could wet the blade a crumbling roller almost swamped the boat. Out went everything that would float.
"Save that bucket, Perce!" shouted Spurring.
Percy clutched the handle just as the pail was going over the side. He bailed, while Spurling brought the flooded craft stern to the seas.
"Take her now, Perce! Give me the bucket!"
Furiously he began scooping out the water. After a long, discouraging fight the boat was bailed clear.
"We've got to run before it while I rig another drug," said Spurling. "Keep her as she is."
In the stern stood a five-gallon can of gasolene, one of the few things that had not been washed overboard when the dory filled. Making use of the sadly diminished coil of ground-line, Jim fastened this can to the end of the painter. Picking a smooth chance, he swung the bow up into the wind again; and soon they were floating snugly behind their new drug.
For another hour they drifted uneventfully. Out of a cloudless sky the red sun dropped below the flying spindrift. A second night was coming, and still the norther raged with undiminished violence.
It was growing dark and the stars were already out when a new sound fell on Percy's ears.
"What's that?" he exclaimed.
Up from the south came a faint, long-drawn, mournful voice, Oo-oo-oo-ooh! They listened breathlessly. It sounded again, Oo-oo-oo-ooh!
"Whistling buoy!" ejaculated Jim. He thought a moment. "Cashe's Ledge!" he shouted. "Sixty miles south of Tarpaulin! That's drifting some since yesterday afternoon. Must be less than a mile to leeward or we couldn't hear it against this gale."
Nearer and nearer, louder and louder, sounded the melancholy note, just west of south. Both boys strained their eyes.
"I see it!" cried Percy, triumphantly. "There—rising on that swell! Almost astern! It's striped red and black!"
But Jim gave him no heed. Lips parted and face pale, he was gazing intently at something farther off. Suddenly he lifted his hand.
"Listen! Do you hear that?"
Above the noise of the surrounding sea rose a low, savage roar. Percy caught Jim's alarm.
"What is it?"
"The breaker on the shoal! Sometimes it combs up high as a house. It's less than a quarter-mile southwest of the buoy, and we're drifting straight down upon it! If we go over it, we'll be swamped, sure as fate, drug or no drug! We'll simply be buried under tons and tons of water!"
Percy fought off his panic.
"What shall we do?" he stammered.
"Make the whistler—if we can. It's buoy or breaker, and mighty quick, too!"
The dory's drift, if unchanged, would take her several yards west of the steel can crowned with its red whistle-cage. Its warning blast set the air vibrating, Oo-oo-oo-ooh!
Jim snatched out his knife and sprang forward.
"Oar in the scull-hole, Perce! Lively!"
Driving the point of his blade into the side of the bow, he dragged the painter in until he reached the gasolene-can. Severing the rope with one quick, strong slash, he scrambled aft and seized the oar.
"Stand by with that painter to jump for the buoy, when I put the bow against it! Better take off your shoes first!"
Percy obeyed. In his stocking feet he would be less liable to slip on the wet iron. Making a loose coil of the painter, he crouched in the bow. Meanwhile Jim had turned the dory round and headed her north of the whistler. A strong current was setting toward the shoal. It took all his strength to scull against it.
Rapidly they neared the can. About eight feet in diameter at the water-line, it tapered to two feet across its flat top, seven feet above. From the circumference rose two iron bails, crossing each other at right angles, several inches above the whistle, which stood two and one-half feet high. A little to one side stuck up the small tube of the intake valve. Round the buoy above the water-line were bolted four lugs, or iron handles, by which the can could be hoisted on board the lighthouse steamer.
As the steel cone sank the whistle bellowed resonantly. Down, down, till the waves swept over its top. Then, slowly it began to rise. The bellowing cut off, and the air rushed into the intake tube.
Percy watched it, fascinated. Jim's voice roused him to their peril.
"Look sharp! Be ready!"
Less than ten feet of wild black water lay between the madly leaping bow and the buoy. Beyond it the shoal broke with an angry roar in a long line of crumbling foam. Percy gathered his strength for the leap.
The distance lessened, foot by foot. Foot by foot the red-and-black cone emerged, as if thrust up by a giant hand. Percy fastened his eyes on a lug.
A grayback heaved the dory forward.
Young Whittington sprang upon the bow thwart, painter end in his right hand, and leaped for the lug. A second later the boat crashed against the buoy.
His left hand caught the bent iron bar; his right missed it. His body thudded against the riveted side, slid down, and he hung by one arm, waist-deep in the water.
Oo-oo-oo-ooh!!!
From the inverted mouth of the whistle, a few feet above, a hoarse, deafening blast roared down into his face.
As he flung up his right hand and passed the end of the painter through the lug a body shot over his head. Spurling had leaped on the top of the dropping buoy. Percy was dragged down under the surface, the whistle still ringing in his ears. He clung desperately to lug and painter.
The vibrations ceased. The can had reached its lowest point. It was rising again. Out came his head.
"Can you hold on a minute, Perce?" roared Spurling's voice.
"Yes," strangled Percy.
"Then let go that painter! I've got it."
Hanging head down, his legs twined round a bail, Spurling worked rapidly with both hands. Soon he had fastened the rope securely to the lug, mooring the dory to the buoy.
Oo-oo-oo-ooh!
The can was sinking again. Putting both hands under Percy's arms, Jim lifted him. Then he lowered his grip to the boy's waist. That terrific blast rendered speech inaudible, but Percy understood. As the water raised part of his weight, he scrambled up over his friend's body.
Thirty seconds later, drenched and gasping, they stood clinging to the bails on the top of the buoy.