Before the line gun was fired he had taken note of such human figures as were visible aboard the schooner: a woman and three children were squatting on the after cabin; a man in oilskins, his face in the shadow of the scoop of a chin-lashed sou’wester, was sitting on the quarter-deck, his legs dangling over the break of the poop. He, the only man in sight, remained as motionless as the dingy figurehead showing under the packet’s sprit.
To be sure, Captain Bent had been apprised that lines from the beach had not been handled aboard the craft, but it was understandable that the services of a breeches buoy might not seem attractive, involving abandonment while a vessel was still riding to kedge. But here now was offered the rescue of souls and craft by a savior whose horizontally barred revenue flag guaranteed that the service would be rendered without salvage claim and free of towage cost.
Captain Bent’s intractable muscles yanked him into the quickstep which characterized his moments of mental stress. He danced to and fro along the bridge in a jig suggestive of carefree gayety. His tongue, however, discounted the supposition. He used up his stock of ordinary deep-water oaths and invented new ones on the spur of the crisis. And it surely was critical at that juncture! At any moment the Arrowsic might crack her keel on the bottom of the porridge kettle.
Yonder, idly dangling his rubber boots against the poop sheathing, lounged an indifferent individual who ought to be scrambling to grab the line, at the same time howling his joy. Here was offered a free tow to safety, but an infernal fool was not lifting a hand to take the gift! What did it mean? Captain Bent was not guessing at the answer after his first rush of amazed emotion. He promptly cleared up all possible mystification in the subalterns on the cutter’s bridge.
He drove both fists in air and boomed, “Only another booze toter! He doesn’t want a show-up!”
Bent lunged to the dial and gave the engine room two bells and the jingle. The Arrowsic frothed in reverse, clawing away from the hazards of the shoals.
“Mr. Todd, lay aboard there with six men!”
The executive officer, disdaining rungs, clasped the ladder’s brass rails and coasted to the deck.
He was followed by the captain’s shouted commands. “Haul aboard our gun line. Then get our hawser onto her fore bitts. Buoy her cables and slip ’em. And ask no questions aboard there, Mr. Todd! When we have towed her free of the rips we’ll heave to. Leave a couple of men as guards and bring her master to me on the cutter.”
The port sponson boat was dropped in the lee of the Arrowsic as soon as she was swung to oppose her bulk to the crested seas.