“Breakers ahead!” shouted Olaf, “look out!”
“I see a black ridge against the sky,” cried Harry; “now it is gone again!”
He was going to say more, but the wind came with a howling screech and forced his breath down his throat. He gasped, and as the boat gave a tremendous lurch, diving down into a black hollow, he could only cling to the base of the mast, lest the next tumble might toss him overboard. The sound of a steady rhythmic roar rose and fell upon the air, and made them strain their eyes in the direction from which it was coming.
“Why, Grim, you are steering away from the island,” Magnus screamed, pointing to the black ridge which was, once more, for a moment revealed.
“He means to land us on the leeward side,” Olaf bawled in his brother’s ear; “the chances are that the water is there a bit smoother.”
To reach the leeward side was, however, a task which required no mean order of seamanship. The distance was too short for tacking, and moreover the water was filled with blind rocks and skerries which made the approach tenfold dangerous. It seemed to the unskilled eyes of the boys that for nearly half an hour The Cormorant was tumbling aimlessly upon the waves, shipping seas which it was a wonder did not swamp her, and righting herself, as by a miracle, when again and again she seemed on the point of capsizing. And yet all these wonderful feats were only the result of the coolest calculation and the most consummate skill.
Just as they were clearing the hidden skerries at the western point of the island the wind veered a point to the north, but did not fall off perceptibly. The spray rose from the shore like a dense and blinding smoke, and in the depths of every black abyss which opened before them death’s jaws seemed to be yawning. Harry closed his eyes; and though he was no coward, his heart failed him.
“What is the use of fighting any longer?” he said to Magnus, who was lying at his side, clinging like him to the mast; “we are going to the bottom, any way. The archangel Gabriel himself couldn’t land us on this shore, with all the heavenly hosts to assist him.”
“But Grim is a better sailor than Gabriel,” Magnus replied, quite unconscious of his joke. “He knows every inch of the bottom here from the time he was a boy and used to row out here and gather eider-down. He has told me about it often. If I were you I wouldn’t give up yet.”
“All right, old fellow,” Harry answered, taking heart once more. “I am ready for anything. But I am an unlucky chap—a sort of a Jonah, who has a talent for getting into scrapes. I shouldn’t wonder if, in case you threw me overboard, the storm would fall off and you might sail home in comfortable fashion.”