“Oh—oh—oh!” whimpered Bob. “Why can’t you let a poor fellow be?”
“Be! What for?” shouted Bigley to my astonishment, for I could not have believed him guilty of such brutality. “Yes, I’ll let you be. I’ll make you work, that’s what I’ll do. I wish I’d a rope’s end here.”
“It’s too bad, it’s too cruel, Big,” I cried passionately. “How can you behave so brutally to the poor fellow!”
“Here, you stick to your own work,” cried Bigley fiercely. “Look, you’re letting me do all the work. Keep her head to the wind, will you?”
His orders were so sharp and fierce that I found myself obeying them directly, and went on baling while Bob whimpered, and Bigley kept on hectoring over us, as I ladled out a little water now and then.
The wind blew as fiercely as ever, and we knew that we were rapidly being carried out farther and farther, right away to a certain extent towards the Welsh coast, but of course being also in the set of the tide, and going out to sea. The cold was terrible whenever we ceased pulling from utter weariness, but we managed among us to keep the boat’s head to wind hour after hour, and danced over and over the waves till by degrees the fury of the wind died out, though we could not believe it at first. Soon, though, it become very evident that it was sinking, and I heard Bigley utter a sigh of relief.
It was quite time that the little gale did pass over, for during the last half hour the water had been coming into the boat more and more, so that it had become necessary for one of us to keep on baling, for the waves seemed to be getting more angry; a sharp rain of spray was dashed from their tops into our necks, and soaking our hair, and every now and again there was a blow, a splash, and a rush of water through the boat.
It was quite true, though we at first thought that we must be under shelter of the land; the wind was sinking fast, and the waves lost their fierce foaminess. They rose and fell, and leaped against the boat, but it was with less splash and fury, and then, as the danger died away, so did our remaining strength. Bigley and I, who were now rowing, or rather dipping our oars from time to time, slowly threw them in, and the boat lay tossing up and down at the mercy of the waves; but no water dashed in over the gunwale, and Bob Chowne’s hand with the baler rested helplessly by his side.
No one spoke out there in the darkness, but we sat in the terrible silence, utterly exhausted, and rapidly growing chilled through and through in our saturated clothes. I remember looking out, and away through the darkness towards the shore as I thought, but I could see nothing till I raised my eyes toward the sky, and then I saw that the clouds had been driven away by the wind, and the stars were out, while straight before me there was the only constellation I knew—the Great Bear.
I was too weary for it to trouble me, but I learned then that the boat must have turned almost completely round since we had left off rowing, for where I had thought the land lay was out to sea, and the Welsh coast—in fact I had been looking due north instead of due south.