“Tell me when you’re beat out, and I’ll begin again.”
Mike nodded.
“But keep on till you’re ready to drop, so as to give me all the rest you can, for my arms feel like bits of wood.”
Mike jerked his head again, and the water went on flying out, looking like a shower of gold in the late afternoon sunshine, till Vince shouted to his companion, in regular nautical parlance, to stand by with the sail.
Mike sprang up and loosened the sheet, standing ready to swing the yard over to the other side. Vince threw the boat up in the wind, the sail swung over, filled for the other tack, and they both began to breathe freely as they glided now toward the south point of the island, where a jutting-up mass of rock, looking dim in the distance, showed where the archway and tunnel lay which led into old Joe’s little natural dock.
“Shall we do it, Cinder?” said Mike faintly, as he made fast the sheet on the other side.
“Do it?—yes, of course,” cried Vince stoutly. “There, my arms are not so numb and full of pins and needles now. Come here and steer.”
“No, I can do a little more,” said Mike.
“No, you can’t. Obey orders always at sea,” cried Vince fiercely; and the exchange of position was made; but there was a full two inches more water in the boat, and as Vince began to bale he did so from where he could at any time seize the pieces of pig iron and tilt them over. In fact, several times he felt disposed to do so, but shrank from it as being a last resource, and from dread lest the act should in any way interfere with the boat’s speed.
Over went the water in the sunshine; and as the boy baled, from looking golden, it by slow degrees grew of an orange tint, and sparkled gloriously, but a deadly feeling of weakness fixed more and more upon Vince’s arms, and as he toiled he knew that before long he must give up to his companion once again. But still he kept on, though it was more and more slowly; and the despair that he had kept to himself was not quite so terrible, for the south point gradually grew nearer, and he had the satisfaction of feeling that he could manage a boat at sea, and well too, for the course they were steering was dead for the tunnel rock, and, could he keep the boat afloat for another twenty minutes or half an hour, they would be safe.