A gallant fight! At the weather gangway stood Old Jock, legs apart and sturdy, talking to his ship.
"Stand, good spars," he would say, casting longing eyes aloft. Or, patting the taffrail with his great sailor hands, "Up tae it, ye bitch! Up!! Up!!!" as, raising her head, streaming in cascade from a sail-pressed plunge, she turned to meet the next great wall of water that set against her. "She'll stand it, Mister," to the Mate at his side. "She'll stand it, an' the head gear holds. If she starts that!"—he turned his palms out—"If she starts th' head gear, Mister!"
"They'll hold, Sir! ... good gear," answered the Mate, hugging himself at thought of the new lanyards, the stout Europe gammon lashings, he had rove off when the boom was rigged. Now was the time when Sanny Armstrong's spars would be put to the test. The relic of the ill-fated Glenisla, now a shapely to'gallant mast, was bending like a whip! "Good iron," he shouted as the backstays twanged a high note of utmost stress.
Struggling across the heaving deck, the Pilot joined the group. Brokenly, shouting down the wind, "She'll never do it, Capt'in, I tell 'oo! ... An' th' tide.... Try th' south passage.... Stags, sure! ... See them fair now! ... Th' south passage, Capt'in.... It iss some years, indeed, but ... I know. Diwedd an'l! She'll never weather it, Capt'in!"
"Aye ... and weather it ... an' the gear holds! Goad, man! Are ye sailor enough t' know what'll happen if Ah start a brace, wi' this press o' sail oan her? T' wind'ard ... she goes. Ne'er failed me yet"—a mute caress of the stout taffrail, a slap of his great hand. "Into it, ye bitch! T' wind'ard! T' wind'ard!"
Staggering, taking the shock and onset of the relentless seas, but ever turning the haughty face of her anew to seek the wind, she struggled on, nearing the cruel rocks and their curtain of hurtling breakers. Timely, the moon rose, herself invisible, but shedding a diffused light in the east, showing the high summits of the rocks, upreared above the blinding spindrift. A low moaning boom broke on our strained ears, turning to the hoarse roar of tortured waters as we drew on.
"How does 't bear noo, M'Kellar? Is she makin' oan't?" shouted the Old Man.
The Second Mate, at the binnacle, sighted across the wildly swinging compass card. "No' sure, Sir. ... Th' caird swingin' ... think there's hauf a p'int.... Hauf a p'int, onyway!"
"Half a point!" A great comber upreared and struck a deep resounding blow—"That for yeer half a point"—as her head swung wildly off—off, till the stout spanker, the windward driver, straining at the stern sheets, drove her anew to a seaward course.
Nearer, but a mile off, the rocks plain in a shaft of breaking moonlight.