“Oh, I’ll try!” Bethune answered morosely; and Jimmy resumed his watch on the kettle and left his companion alone.
He knew the curious slackness which sometimes seizes men exposed to the fury of the sea. It differs from fatigue in being moral rather than physical, and it is distinct from fear; its victim is overwhelmed by a sense of the futility of anything that he can do. Determined effort is its best cure, and Jimmy smiled as he heard the clatter of the pump. He thought Bethune would feel better presently.
He made the coffee, found a few of the tough cakes Moran called biscuits, and recklessly opened a can of meat. After the meal, which they all found a luxurious change from fish, Jimmy lay down, wet through as he was, on a locker, and, wedging himself fast with parts of the dismantled diving pump, sank into broken sleep.
It was midnight when he went up again to take the helm. There was no moon, and gray scud obscured the sea. Foam-tipped ridges came rolling out of it, and the Cetacea labored heavily. Jimmy watched Moran pump a while before he went below, and then he pulled himself together to keep his dreary watch. The slow whitening of the east brought no change. Dawn came, and throughout another wearing day they still lay hove to. The sloop did not give them much trouble, and they could easily pump out all the water she shipped; but toward evening they began to feel anxious. The gale had increased. They must already have made a good deal of leeway and they might be drifting near the land; if so, she would not carry enough sail to drive her clear, and there would soon be an end of her if she were blown ashore.
Jimmy was on deck at dawn the next morning, but saw nothing except a narrow circle of foaming sea and the flying scud that dimmed the horizon. Toward noon, however, it began to clear, and, getting out the glasses, he waited eagerly during an hour or two of fitful sunshine. The wind seemed to be falling, and the haze had thinned. Slowly it blew away, and a high, gray mass rose into view, four or five miles off. Moran called out as he saw it, but Jimmy quietly studied the land through his glasses.
“The head, sure enough!” he said. “If it had kept thick, we’d have been ashore and breaking up long before dark. Now we have to decide what it’s best to do. She might stand a three-reefed mainsail.”
“It would take us a week to beat back to the island, and we wouldn’t have many provisions left when we got there,” Bethune pointed out. “I don’t feel keen on facing the long thrash to windward.”
“She wouldn’t be long making Comox with this breeze over her quarter,” Moran suggested. “We might get somebody to grubstake us at one of the stores.”
“Considering that there’s a bond on her, it isn’t likely,” Jimmy replied.
They let her drift while they looked gloomily to windward, where the island lay. It would need a stern effort to reach it unless the wind should change; a long stretch of foaming sea which the sloop must be driven across close-hauled divided the men from the wreck. They were all worn out and depressed; and neither of Moran’s comrades protested when he got up abruptly and slacked off the mainsheet.