“He’s gittin’ ready to go about,” continued the keeper, his eye still to the glass. “I see Caleb shiftin’ his seat. They know they can’t make the P’int on that leg. Jiminy-whiz, but it’s soapy out there! See ’er take that roller! Gosh!”
The boat careened, the dots crowded together, and the Dolly bore away from the shore. It was evidently Captain Joe’s intention to give Crotch Island Point a wide berth and then lay a straight course for the Ledge, now barely visible through the haze, the derricks and masonry alone showing clear above the fringe of breaking surf tossed white against the dull gray sky.
All eyes were now fixed on the Dolly. Three times she laid a course toward the Ledge, and three times she was forced back behind the island.
“They’ve got to give it up,” said the keeper, laying down his glass. “That tide cuts round that ’ere P’int like a mill-tail, to say nothin’ o’ them smashers that’s rollin’ in. How she keeps afloat out there is what beats me.”
“She wouldn’t if Cap’n Joe wasn’t at the tiller,” said the skipper, with a laugh. “Ye can’t drown him no more ’n a water-rat.” He had an abiding faith in Captain Joe almost as great as that of Aunty Bell.
Sanford’s face brightened. An overwhelming anxiety for the safety of the endangered men had strangely, almost unaccountably unnerved him. It was some comfort to feel Captain Brandt’s confidence in Captain Joe’s ability to meet the situation; for that little cockle-shell battling before him as if for its very life—one moment on top of a mountain of water, and the next buried out of sight—held between its frail sides not only two of the best men whom he knew, but really two of the master spirits of their class. One of them, Captain Joe, Sanford admired more than any other man, loving him, too, as he had loved but few.
With a smile to the skipper, he looked off again toward the sea. He saw the struggling boat make a fourth attempt to clear the Point, and in the movement lurch wildly; he saw, too, that her long boom was swaying from side to side. Through the driving spray he made out that two of the dots were trying to steady it. The third dot was standing in the stern.
Here some new movement caught his eye. He strained his neck forward; then taking the glass from the skipper watched the little craft intently.
“There’s something the matter,” he said nervously, after a moment’s pause. “That’s Captain Joe waving to one of those two smacks out there scudding in under close reefs. Look yourself; am I right, Tony?” and he passed the glass to the keeper again.
“Looks like it, sir,” replied Tony in a low tone, the end of the glass fixed on the tossing boat. “The smack sees ’em now, sir. She’s goin’ about.”