"Those fool boats," grumbled he, "have rudders. They are no good for the surf. Look," he pointed to where half-a-mile from them the swell broke in huge curling rollers on the bar of Tops Island. "One can't hold a boat true in that surf with a bit of wood stuck on rudder pintles. If I took you in now when there is little water on the bar in a boat like that she would broach and roll over and over. And the sharks are watching there for the meal that they would get. If you don't want to be food for sharks, Madame, you trust to Willatopy."
"For days past," said she, "our lives have been in your hands, Willie, and you have not failed us. Show us what we should do."
Willatopy beckoned to the second officer and explained that he wanted the rudder to be unshipped from one of the lifeboats and a strong eye of rope lashed to the top of the sternpost. It was to take a steering sweep, and to be very, very strong. "I take Madame in through the surf," he added.
"The devil you do," said the officer, gazing upon the huge foaming rollers, whose thunder as they broke upon the bar made conversation difficult. "Will it not be safer to wait till high water?"
"No," returned Madame calmly. "I go now—with Willatopy."
"If you go I shall go too. Though it seems to me just foolishness. At high water it would be easy."
"Yes," assented Willatopy. "Quite easy. There is a channel inshore which you could pass in the motor boat. It is only now at low water that the surf breaks heavily like that."
"No," repeated Madame firmly. "Where Willatopy leads, I follow. Make ready and be quick about it."
The second officer lashed on the eye of rope himself, and tested carefully the fitting of the longest sweep that he could find. He had pledged himself to share Madame's risks, but he was not going to take more chances than he could help. When he had finished the job, Willatopy passed it as very good.
"I could steer you over the bar of the Fly River with that," said he, "and the surf up north is not like those little breakers."