"I'll try. There's a charm in small boat sailing, but it's a charm that only gets you by degrees, and one finds it hard to say what it consists of on nights like this. I don't like being wet and hungry, and I hate to feel cold, and yet here I am, in a gale of wind, behind the Horseshoe Spit!"
"It's curious," said Andrew, smiling. "I dare say there are instincts in human nature that neither of us understands. But you'd better watch your job; you're running the ham fat all over the stove."
Whitney dished the ham and made some coffee, cut a loaf that was not very wet, and took out a sticky jar of marmalade. Leaning forward from the lockers, they began to eat; but care was needed in taking things from the table, which swiveled above the centerboard-trunk, for a rash movement would precipitate all it held upon the sloppy floorings.
Whitney got rather knocked about as he put the things away. For a time afterward he contrived to lie on the locker; then he knocked out his pipe and sat listening. The chain cable jarred across the stem, the halyards slapped the mast, and through the shrill scream of wind came in deep undertone the roar of the sea.
"It sounds pretty bad, but I've been banged about for the last twelve hours and nobody could sleep while this racket goes on," he said. "Is that sand hard, and could one get on to it?"
"I think so, and I'd like to see the channel. We might have some trouble in pulling across, but it will be smoother coming back."
"Very well," said Whitney. "Things will be a bit more comfortable then, and I've had enough."
They went on deck, but he half regretted his suggestion as they launched the dinghy. The moon was covered by driving clouds, and in the darkness the sea raged about the yacht. It was not high, because the tide was falling and the water shoaling fast, but it broke angrily and the air was thick with spray. As soon as the dinghy was overboard they jumped into her and while Whitney got out the oars Andrew pushed her clear of the rolling yacht. The current swept them away, but a furious gust whipped the channel, throwing up a haze of spindrift, and they were blown back past the Rowan in spite of Whitney's efforts. It was a minute or two before he could control the craft, but he fought his way to windward until a ridge of wet sand began to shelter them. When this was reached they dragged her up and set off across the bank.
It was hardly possible to see a dozen yards and they struggled on with lowered heads, sinking in oozy patches and splashing into pools. Then the sand got firmer, and although it had been under water an hour before, it drove past them in whistling streams. The surf roared in the darkness with a rising and falling cadence like the roll of giant drums, but every now and then its deep tone was drowned by the scream of the savage wind. The men wore oilskins, sea-boots and sou'westers, but the spray that swept the bank in a thin mist found out the openings in their clothing, which the gale distended. It was difficult to keep one's feet, and Whitney wondered rather anxiously whether Andrew knew where he was going. Still, there was something that braced and exhilarated one in the struggle.
They had gone about a mile and a half and were near the other side of the bank when the moon suddenly shone out. The wet sand flashed into brightness and Whitney distinguished a belt of tossing white that was blurred and confused in the foreground but grew into regular, foaming lines farther off. This must be an inlet that pierced the sands; and on looking round a little he saw a dark mass with a pole rising from it some distance away. He touched Andrew and they made for the object.