The skipper of the yacht and a couple of hands rushed below. A part of the bow had been carried away and a small hole made just above the waterline, through which the water spurted whenever she encountered a large wave. It was enough to waterlog her and sink her in such a sea. The two seamen grasped whatever bedding was in reach below, rammed it into the opening, and held it there. The skipper ran on deck, and by the aid of the men hauled out a couple of sails and dropped them over the bow. These would aid in keeping out the water. They could float now, but where were they going? “Going ashore,” said Mavick, grimly. And so they were.
“Was there a panic on board?” it was asked afterwards. Not exactly. Among well-bred people a panic is never good form. But there were white faces and trembling knees and anxious looks. The steamer was coming towards them, and all eyes were fixed on that rather than on the rocks of the still distant shore.
The most striking incident of the moment—it seemed so to some of those who looked back upon it—was a singular test of character, or rather of woman's divination of character. Carmen instinctively flew to Jack and grasped and held his arm. She knew, without stopping to reason about it, that he would unhesitatingly imperil his life to save that of any woman. Whatever judgment is passed upon Jack, this should not be forgotten. And Miss Tavish; to whom did she fly in this peril? To the gallant Major? No. To the cool and imperturbable Mavick, who was as strong and sinewy as he was cool? No. She ran without hesitation to Van Dam, and clung to him, recognizing instinctively, with the woman's feeling, the same quality that Jack had. There are such men, who may have no great gifts, but who will always fight rather than run under fire, and who will always protect a woman.
Mavick saw all this, and understood it perfectly, and didn't object to it at the time—but he did not forget it.
The task of rescue was not easy in that sea and wind, but it was dexterously done. The steamer approached and kept at a certain distance on the windward side. A boat was lowered, and a line was brought to the yacht, which was soon in tow with a stout cable hitched to the steamer's anchor windlass.
It was all done with much less excitement than appeared from the telegraphic accounts, and while the party were being towed home the peril seemed to have been exaggerated, and the affair to look like an ordinary sea incident. But the skipper said that it was one escape in a hundred.
The captain of the steamer raised his hat gravely in reply to the little cheer from the yacht, when Carmen and Miss Tavish fluttered their handkerchiefs towards him. The only chaff from the steamer was roared out by a fat Boston man, who made a funnel of his hands and shouted, “The race is not always to the swift.”
As soon as Jack stepped ashore he telegraphed to Edith that the yacht had had an accident in the harbor, but that no one was hurt. When he reached the hotel he found a letter from Edith of such a tenor that he sent another despatch, saying that she might expect him at once, leaving the yacht behind. There was a buzz of excitement in the town, and there were a hundred rumors, which the sight of the yacht and its passengers landed in safety scarcely sufficed to allay.
When Jack called at the Tavish cottage to say good-by, both the ladies were too upset to see him. He took a night train, and as he was whirled away in the darkness the events of the preceding forty-eight hours seemed like a dream. Even the voyage up the coast was a little unreal—an insubstantial episode in life. And the summer city by the sea, with its gayety and gossip and busy idleness, sank out of sight like a phantom. He drew his cap over his eyes, and was impatient that the rattling train did not go faster, for Edith, waiting there in the Golden House, seemed to stretch out her arms for him to come. Still behind him rose a picture of that bacchanalian breakfast—the Major and Carmen and Mavick and Miss Tavish dancing a reel on the sloping deck, then the rising wind, the reckless daring of the race, and a vision of sudden death. He shuddered for the first time in a quick realization of how nearly it came to being all over with life and its pleasures.