For the moment, however, his efforts were useless, as he and I both knew, for the object had been so far to the westward when last seen that we could not hope to sight her until we were fairly beyond the limits of the bay; and when this at length happened the upper edge of the sun’s disk was just visible above the western horizon, sinking beneath it at the precise moment when the catamaran shot through the opening between two formidable walls of breakers, which were dashing themselves into spray thirty feet high as they hurled themselves upon the lava reef.
The boat, or whatever it was, ought now to be within the range of our vision, and Murdock intently scrutinised the darkening sea ahead for some sign of it, but in vain. Then he turned his glances shoreward and saw Cunningham standing on the verge of the bluff, vigorously waving us to keep away.
“Put up your hellum a bit, sir,” he admonished me, with his eye still upon Cunningham; then—“Steady!” as he saw the engineer fling both hands above his head, and almost at the same instant I caught the faintest glimpse imaginable of a small dark spot appearing for a moment in ghostly fashion against the creaming head of a distant breaker, just clear of the lower end of our lateen yard.
“There she is!” I exclaimed, and as I spoke a star glimmered out of the deepening blue almost immediately above the spot where the object had appeared.
“Where away, sir?” demanded the boatswain, again peering ahead under the sharp of his hand.
“Do you see that star?” I responded, pointing with my disengaged hand. “Well, she is about half a point to the westward—there she is again, straight ahead!”
“I see her, sir; I see her,” answered Murdock. “Steady as you go, Mr Temple, and we’re bound to pick her up.”
I thought so too, although the darkness was falling about us with the rapidity of a sea fog gathering. Still, the star was a splendid guide, and steering by it we caught two or three additional glimpses of the object before the darkness completely enveloped us. Moreover, the catamaran was slashing along at racing speed, smothering us with spray every time she hit the crest of a wave; and now my chief fear was that this same spray might so effectually conceal our surroundings at the precise moment when we most needed to see, namely, when we were surmounting a comber, that we might unwittingly overshoot our mark. Therefore at very brief intervals I admonished Murdock to “keep his eyes skinned”, at the same time myself keeping as sharp a lookout as I could. I estimated that, with the breeze then blowing, we ought to cover the distance between the object and ourselves in about six or seven minutes after clearing the reef, but I had no means of judging the time, except by guesswork, out there in the darkness, and I was on tenterhooks lest we should miss the thing and stand too far out, when the chances would be all against our picking her up on the return journey. Therefore at last, feeling that we must be pretty close to the object of our quest, I sent Murdock forward, believing that he would have a better chance of picking her up from there than by standing alongside me, although his figure would greatly obscure my own view.
Accordingly the boatswain went right forward into the very eyes of the catamaran, where he would be clear of the heaviest of the flying spray; and he had scarcely taken his station when, without looking round, he suddenly shouted:
“There she is, sir! Keep her away or you’ll be on to her; hard up, sir! So, steady! Now, hard down and shake her. That’ll do, sir; keep her at that. Luff a bit yet, sir. So, steady!” and, dashing aft, the boatswain snatched up a small coil of line that we had made ready for the purpose, and hurled himself recklessly at a dark mass that at that moment came sliding close past what had been our lee side before I luffed the catamaran into the wind. I heard the splashing clatter of his boots as he landed upon certain objects that sounded like loose paddles lying washing about in the bottom of the canoe—for such I now saw the craft to be; saw him stoop, as though making fast the rope he had taken with him; and then he shouted: “All fast, sir; let her go off!” I put up the helm of the catamaran, and as she fell off and began to gather fresh way Murdock hauled his prize up alongside and scrambled out of her, snubbing the towline to a length of about two fathoms.