“I’m last to leave her,” whispered the old man. “She’s my boat, and I’ve run her.”
“Peterson,” said I, taking him aside, “I’ll buy us another boat. But there is no woman on earth, nor ever will be, like that one yonder. Save her. It is your first duty. I wanted that for myself, but she thinks I’m a coward, and I would be, if I arranged our crews any other way than just as we are. Take your boat through. We others will do the best we can. And give the word for the boats when you’re sure we can’t ride it out.”
Silently, the old man touched his cap, and giving me one look, he went to the bows of his boat. The Belle Helène, lashed by the storm, rolled and pulled at her cable, rose, fell thuddingly. And at last, came a giant swell that almost submerged us. I caught Helena to the cabin-top to keep her drier from it, and the two boys also sprang to a point of safety. Mrs. Daniver, less agile, was caught by Peterson and Williams and held to the rail, wetted thoroughly. And by some freak of the wind, at that instant came fully the roar of the surf. We of the Belle Helène seemed very small.
I looked now at Peterson. He raised his little megaphone, which hung at his belt, and shouted loud and clear, as though we could not have heard him at this distance of ten feet. “Get ready to lower away!” Williams and the deck-hand sprang to the falls. “Get the women in the boat, you, Williams,” called the skipper, “and go in with them to steady her when she floats. Take his place there, Mr. Harry. Lively now!” And how we got the two women into the swinging boat I hardly knew.
The old skipper cast one eye ahead as a big wave rolled astern. “Now!” he shouted. “Lower away, there!”
The boat dropped into the cup of a sea, rose level with the rail the next instant, and tossed perilously. I saw the two women huddled in the bottom of her, their eyes covered, saw Williams climbing over them and easing her at the bowline. Then, as we seized the next instant of the rhythm, and hauled her alongside, Peterson made a leap and went aboard her, and Williams scrambled back, once more, across the two huddled forms. I saw him wrench at the engine crank, and heard the spitting chug of the little motor. They fell off in the seaway, Peterson holding her with an oar as he could till the screws caught. Then I saw her answer the helm and they staggered off, passing out of the beam of our search-light, so that it seemed to me I had said good-by to Helena forever.
We who remained had no davits to aid us, and must launch by hand. For a moment I stood and made my plans. First, I called to Willy, our deck-hand, who had the dingey now astern, some fashion. “Are you ready?” I demanded: but the next moment I heard his call astern and knew that, monkey-like, he had got her over and was aboard her somehow.
“Now, boys,” said I, “come here and shake hands with Black Bart.” They came, their serious eyes turned up to me. And never has deeper emotion seized me than as I felt their young hands in mine. We said nothing.
“Now, bear a hand there, you, Jean!” I pulled open the gate of the rail, and ran out the landing stage, on which the flat-bottomed skiff sat. With an oar I pushed it across at right angles as nearly as possible when she cleared. “Quick! Get in, both of you,” I called. I was holding the inboard end of the plank under a wedged oar shaft, thrust below the sill of the forward cabin door. They scrambled out and in, Jean grasping the bight of the painter that I handed him, and passing it over the rail.
“Now, look out,” I called, and dropped the landing stage to meet the swell of the next wave. They slid, tilted, righted, rose high—and held. The next moment I sprang, fell into the sea, was caught by the collar as my hand grasped the cockpit coaming, and so I slid in, somehow, over the end deck, and caught the end of the painter from John’s hand and cast her free.