Disappointed, frustrated, he rowed for a space in silence, knowing that the full career of their speech had swerved awry. In a twinkling she had withdrawn to a lamentable distance.
“But Jubilee?” persisted Miles. “And Terry, and the dog—what became—”
“All sold,” answered the girl curtly. “When she died. Sold off. Poor little old Terry!” For a moment she sat alone with her thoughts; then suddenly lifting her head, listened.
“What’s that?” Her tone was hard as business. “Do you hear it?”
Miles heard, and not without anxiety. A steady, muffled puffing sound labored doggedly nearer through the fog. Against an ebb-tide that raced for the bay and open sea, he had rowed indifferently, his arms working, but his thoughts inclining to let the boat drift. In the charmed isolation of the fog, it had become, for the instant, a barge of glory, a shallop of dreams. Awake now, he recognized that the “back-eddy” which swept the shore toward Alward’s Cove had not yet seized their keel; that they were still in the channel; that the channel was none too wide, and the approaching noise none too far astern. He swung full power on his port oar.
“What is it?” repeated the girl, peering over her shoulder.
“Trim the boat,” he commanded. “Can’t tell. We’re all right.”
But of this he felt by no means sure. The steady “puff-puff” throbbed more and more distinct, and with it came a wide whisper of rushing water. The vagueness of all direction told him that to shout, in this thick obscurity, would only alarm his passenger. He tugged mightily across the current, hoping for the sudden wrench of the counter-eddy. It did not grasp them. Instead, the noise fought closer, truculent and panting; the whisper of rushing surfaces widened and sharpened, more and more sibilant.
A silent explosion seemed to hoist the laggard stern of the punt, which instantly, as though stung into live hatred, came crashing along their port side, crowding and struggling like a horse that fights his mate in harness. Struck by this trough of whirling suds, an oar shot into the air. With a stagger, the boat careened as to capsize, slewed violently on a soft upheaval. Through the mist, a pear-shaped bag of woven cordage stole past like a phantom, above a low black bulwark; at interminable intervals, three heavy stakes filed along, almost overhead,—fenders hanging parallel at the same forward slant. Their boat, righting dizzily, leaped once, cramped and awkward as a sheep jumping a wall. And they were left pitching on a foamy wake, smothered in the smell of steam, wrapped by a warm mist invisible in a cold.
“The oar! The oar!” cried Miles.