An hour later Maxwell and the two traders stood upon the roaring beach amidst a crowd of black men. Steamy spray whirled about them, and veiled half the palm-crowned bluff from whose summit a crimson flame leaped up; and each time the white haze thinned, two lights reeled wildly through the blackness out at sea. Between these and the beach a succession of great rollers reared their crests of phosphorescent flame, and the hoot of the steamer's whistle was but faintly audible through the roar they made. A picked crew of brawny negroes chattered about the big surf-boat they held upright on rollers just clear of the surges which raced up the sand.
"It does not look nice. In fact, I've seldom seen it worse, but we'll take our chances when those big ones have run in," said Gilby. "Get into the boat Maxwell, and take care when the rest of us follow in a hurry that we don't fall over you. Hyah you Krooboy, all be fit and ready!"
Huge breakers usually run in series, and when the last of the larger ones had crumbled with a thunderous roar, burying the half-mile sweep of sand in foam from end to end, there was a heaving of muscular shoulders, and clamorous black men floundered waist-deep through the backwash dragging at the boat. She was large and heavy, but thirty pairs of strong hands made light work, and when a dozen amphibious Kroos had swung themselves on board the rest toiled almost shoulder-deep in hissing froth while the sand streamed seaward under them. The craft's stern alone stuck fast, and Redmond shouted himself breathless as he braced his shoulders beneath her quarter, knowing that unless they could drive her clear boat and crew would be rolled over together when the next sea came in.
"Shove, you black imps, shove before them sharks go chop you!" he cried.
They made a last effort, the boat slid clear. Twelve three-tongued paddles smote the water together, and Redmond watched the craft rise almost upright with bows buried in froth and seafire as another majestic breaker came rolling in. Then he turned and raced shoreward for his life, with an acre of foam close behind him. When he halted again the surf-boat had vanished into the hollow of the sea, but the howling of those who paddled her, and the helmsman's sulphurous encouragement, rising above the roar of waters, betokened her safety.
"Gilby's no fool in a surf-boat, anyway," he mused, as he went back dripping to the factory.
Another hour had passed when the boat was flung upon the beach with a crash which rent her damaged plank from end to end; and the soaked white man who sprang out of her hurried to the factory with his proud display of two bottles of claret, and one, partly-empty, of liqueur, besides a piece of ice in flannel, and a cigar box.
"The time was too short, or I might have done better," he explained. "Had only a few minutes to tax the skipper and mates in, while the old man wasn't over-pleased about stopping for one passenger. Boat was half-full when we got alongside, and Maxwell too weak to climb the ladder. They hove him on board with the crane, wrong side uppermost, and half-dazed apparently. The boat was plunging wildly, and Sorrowful Tom too drunk to fix the sling. Taking things all around, it's a mercy we didn't drown him."
"You're a good man in a boat," Redmond conceded. "Still, you have very little sense. Fancy making a run of that kind and coming ashore with—claret!"