WHEN I reached the place, the prow of the Violetta had already run aground, and the stern had swung about, dragging the attached tree trunks after it, so that the yacht lay in something like its former position, parallel to the shore, but further off, the shelve being here more gradual. Moreover, she was now on a windward shore, the waves of considerable height and force, and, being balanced, so to speak, on her keel, she oscillated, descending now on this side toward the shore, now on that side away from me, through an arc of some forty degrees. The situation I beheld with mingled emotions, both soothed and lacerated, soothed on account of Professor Simpson's condign punishment, lacerated on account of Mrs. Mink. Their cries were heard above the tumult. They clung to the landward rail, which went up and down like a teeter, or a ducking stool, regular as a pendulum, terrific, but distressing.
“For goodness' sake, doctor, do something!” cried Mrs. Mink; and Professor Simpson shrieked: “Can you not assist? I entreat! I adjure! Do not——”
He was interrupted.
Something had to be done.
The two tree trunks attached to the stern had been driven about, so that the butts rested on the bottom, in the midst of the surf. Being dragged back and forth by the motion of the yacht, and at the same time tossed by the surf, the result was a somewhat complicated motion. To get through the surf was no great difficulty, for two hundred and odd pounds of determination. But to draw the butts together, to climb them beyond reach of the surf, to maintain the uneasy position so gained, astride those two insane, rotatory, and indecorous poles,—wabbled, danced, dandled, jerked about in the air by that eccentric and careening-viaduct, whose leaps, halts, and rebounds resembled the kicking of a restive mule or a series of railroad collisions—this was achievement, this was a goal and effort worthy of a man!
I succeeded. Clinging to the logs with hands and knees, I looked up. Mrs. Mink and the professor hung over the shattered rail above me. I shouted:
“Come on! I'll meet you.”
“But I can't walk that!” she called back. “It doesn't keep still.”
“Walk it! No!” I roared. “Creep it, madam! Shin it! Roll it! Come anyway, and don't fall off.”
She laughed.