“That’s so,” said Moran. “As soon as we’ve got sail on her, we’ll pull back and look.”
Jimmy protested. They were tired and hungry, and it would be a hard row to the beach against the rising breeze, but Moran laughed, and Bethune told him to sit still when he would have gone up to help them. He lighted the stove, and when they called him the reefed mainsail was banging overhead, and Bethune was in the dory, while Moran, kneeling under the jib, freed a coil of chain from the fluke of the anchor.
“I guess that’s what made the trouble,” he said. “We won’t be long, and when you have made two or three tacks you can show a light.”
He jumped into the dory, and it disappeared into the dark, while Jimmy drove the sloop ahead, close-hauled, until he dimly made out the boulders on a point. Then he came round and stretched along-shore on the other tack, until he left the helm for a few moments and lighted a lantern. Soon after he had done so he heard a shout and when he hove the boat to there was a splash of oars. Then the dory emerged from the gloom and Moran, seizing the rail, threw a jacket and pair of long boots on deck.
“Got them all right. They were a fathom from the tide; the beach is pretty steep.”
“I must have had the sense to throw them well back, though I can’t remember it,” Jimmy answered with a laugh.
“We’re going to have a better supper than I thought we would get not long ago,” Bethune remarked as he lifted the dory in; and Jimmy gave the helm to Moran and went below to help in preparing the meal.
CHAPTER XXVIII—A TRUCE
When Jimmy sighted the island where the wreck lay, there was a ghostly white glimmer among the mist that hung heavily along the shore. Most of the land was hidden, but the bank of vapor had a solidity and sharpness of outline that indicated the existence of something behind it. The wind was light, but it freshened as they crept on under easy sail, and the fog rolling back from the water revealed a broad and roughly level streak that glittered in the morning light. Nearer at hand two tall detached masses shone a cold gray-white on a strip of indigo sea. Then the vapor dropped again like a curtain as the breeze died away.
“Ice!” commented Moran. “Guess we’ve got here too soon.”