Hawtrey's Deputy

by Harold Bindloss

In the meanwhile, Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and knew what it meant, which was why he had hauled a reef in the schooner's mainsail down, and now kept her out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her round the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the Selache sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run.

He stood for several minutes gazing forward grim in face beside the wheel, but he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident to him that to send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove the schooner to while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled her towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could neither have made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also, though this appeared of less consequence, uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have got more sail off her, which would, as he recognised, very soon have to be done. Still, he stood on while the snow grew thicker until they heard the wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.

"On the wind. Haul lee sheets!" he said.

She came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a curious tense look in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her.

They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. Then they got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.

CHAPTER XXV.

NEWS OF DISASTER.

When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then stood out for open water, where he hove the Selache to for a week or so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon.

He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march from the schooner, he made a depôt of provisions, and raised a beacon of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.