Head Harbor before daybreak. Boston or New York the morning after. Two months or more of easy living in the same old way. After that the deluge, alias John P. Whittington.
Isle au Haut or Tarpaulin Island, which should it be? Beads of sweat started on Percy's face as he wrestled out his problem.
Far more was involved than the mere question of going north or south. He had come to the parting of the ways. His whole life hung in the balance. Floating in that frail skiff on the uneasy swell, he realized that everything depended on the direction in which he swung the prow. His future lay in his oar-blades.
Under the horizon north and west stretched the coast. He closed his eyes and saw a vision of the feverish city life he knew and loved so well—lighted streets thronged with gay crowds, human banks between which flowed rivers of velvet-shod automobiles and clanging cars; hotel lobbies and theaters and restaurants alive with men and women who had never stooped to toil; all the luxury and glare and glitter that wait upon modern wealth. This was what he was fitting himself for. What did it all amount to?
He opened his eyes and came back to the little boat, rocking gently on the undulating swells; to the lonely glory of the peaceful ocean, arched by the starry sky. A light breeze was beginning to blow from the southwest, dispersing the thin silver mist that overhung the water.
Percy glanced at his watch; it was quarter past ten, almost time for the ebb to cease and the flood to begin.
Should he keep on or go back? He must decide quickly. Already his arms were tired, and he was more than two miles north of the island. The longer he delayed his decision the harder would be his pull against the flood if he turned.
Minutes passed as he pondered, barely dipping his oars. It was slack tide now and the pea-pod just held her own. Down on the breeze floated a distant, melancholy note, the voice of the whistling buoy south of Roaring Bull Ledge, two miles from Isle au Haut. Was it an invitation or a warning?
Slowly at first, then faster, the stern of the boat swung round. The tide had turned. The flood would carry him north with but little effort on his part. Should he let himself go with it?
Percy's indecision vanished. The tide of his own life had turned, like that of the ocean; slow and doubtful though the change had been, the current was at last setting the other way. Grasping the oar-handles tightly, he whirled the head of the pea-pod southward and started again for Tarpaulin Island.