CHAPTER XI
THE PLUNGE!
Dazed though Stern was at his first realization of the impending horror, yet through his fear for Beatrice, still asleep among her furs, struggled a vast wonder at the meaning, the possibility of such a phenomenon.
How could a current like that rush up along the Sound? How could there be a cataract, sucking down the waters of the sea itself--whither could it fall? Even at that crisis the man's scientific curiosity was aroused; he felt, subconsciously, the interest of the trained observer there in the midst of deadly peril.
But the moment demanded action.
Quickly Stern dropped to the deck, and, noiseless as a cat in his doe-skin sandals, ran aft.
But even before he had executed the instinctive tactic of shifting the helm, paying off, and trying to beat up into the faint breeze that now drifted over the swirling current, he realized its futility and abandoned it.
“No use,” thought he. “About as effective as trying to dip up the ocean with a spoon. Any use to try the sweeps? Maybe she and I together could swing away out of the current--make the shore--nothing else to do--I'll try it, anyhow.”
Beside the girl he knelt.
“Beta! Beta!” he whispered in her ear. He shook her gently by the arm. “Come, wake up, girlie--there's work to do here!”
She, submerged in healthy sleep, sighed deeply and murmured some unintelligible thing; but Stern persisted. And in a minute or so there she was, sitting up in the bottom of the yawl among the furs.