“I can’t do any more in this wind,” he answered. “You seem to know about boats; you will understand.”
She nodded, and on they rushed, the ever-freshening gale on their beam.
“This boat sails well,” said Stella, as a little water trickled over the gunwale.
Morris made no answer, his eyes were fixed upon the point of rock; only bidding his companion hold the tiller, he did something to the sail. Now they were not more than five hundred yards away.
“It will be a very near thing,” she said.
“Very,” he answered, “and I don’t want to be officious, but I suggest that you might do well to say your prayers.”
She looked at him, and bowed her head for a minute or so. Then suddenly she lifted it again and stared at the terror ahead of them with wide, unflinching eyes.
On sped the boat while more and more did tide and gale turn her prow into the reef. At the end of it a large, humpbacked rock showed now and again through the surf, like the fin of a black whale. That was the rock which they must clear if they would live. Morris took the boat-hook and laid it by his side. They were very near now. They would clear it; no, the wash sucked them in like a magnet.
“Good-bye,” said Morris instinctively, but Stella answered nothing.
The wave that lifted them broke upon the rock in a cloud of spray wherein for some few instants their boat seemed to vanish. They were against it; the boat touched, and Stella felt a long ribbon of seaweed cut her like a whip across the face. Kneeling down, Morris thrust madly with the boat-hook, and thus for an instant—just one—held her off. His arms doubled beneath the strain, and then came the back-wash.