Chapter VII.
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?
"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.