Annette, the Metis Spy: A Heroine of the N.W. Rebellion

by J. E. Collins

"The boat is light," Nancy replied, "and the canvas covering will keep it from filling, if I can only manage always to meet the sea head on. If I had a pair of after oars as well as my own there would not be much difficulty." As she spoke these words, she looked at the group, as if calling for a volunteer: but nobody took her hint. They all cowered in the face of the gale, and some of them began to move away from the dock.

"Then I must go alone," the girl said, as she threw off her shawl, and hastily tied up her mane of soft, black hair. "You will surely help me to launch the boat." But no hand would help her. They saw the impetuous girl going to doom, and they would not be a party to her madness. Getting three or four round pieces of driftwood, which were slippery with water-slime, she laid them along the dock; two other billets she placed under the boat's keel. Then gathering her strength for one pull, she sent the boat into the churning surf. One of the fishermen advanced to detain her, but she waved him back with a gesture so determined and imperious that he hesitated. He then held consultation with his friends. Two or three now hurried down to the water's edge, but the boat had shot out beyond their reach, and was already rising like some great sea-bird over the mad waves. The girl had seized her oars and was rowing at a brisk rate toward the ledge. Sometimes a huge, green, glittering wave would arise and roll towards the shell, and the fishermen would close their eyes; but in response to the rower's quick wrist, the little skiff would turn and climb over the roaring crest of the terrible billow. Sometimes the boat was nowhere to be seen, and one of the spectators would say to another,

"It is all over!"

Presently, however, the cockle would rise out of the trough and appear upon the summit of a breaking sea, looking like a large, crouching, sea-gull. On, steadily, the mite of a craft held its way, sometimes heading directly for the reef, again swerving to the right to mount a rampant billow. Smaller, and smaller grew the little figure, till it became a mere white speck away in the driving mist. The fishermen still remained huddled together in the dock; and as one, with the telescope in his hand, announced that the girl was now within a cable's length of the reef, a great look of shame came into their faces, that not one had shown courage enough to go with her. As for Nancy, in the midst of the ravening turmoil, she was cool of head and steady of arm, pulling with a sturdy stroke, and constantly turning her face to note the waves to be met with the full front of the skiff. Sometimes the cross wash from a sea would smite the boat upon the quarter, and for a moment expose it to destruction; but in response to the girl's quick judgment and steady wrist, the bold little prow would be instantly brought again in the face of the tempest. In one continuous storm the spray drove over her, and the skiff was more than half full of water. It was growing dark, and she could barely distinguish the opposite shore. But the danger of the passage was at last over, and her tiny craft was in the shelter of the gloomy reef.

There was a windlass bolted to the rock, with which she drew the skiff beyond the reach of the waves. Nimbly then she climbed the reef till she reached the door of the tower. A few seconds later all the fishermen saw the warm, yellow glare of the light streaming over the turbulent water.

Nancy was happy now, and her large eyes strained through the lantern of the tower to catch sight of the ship. She had not long to wait. Between the reef and the long stretch of eastern shore, a red light pulsed upon a wave, moving towards the harbour.

"Good!" the girl cried out, "she is midway in the channel and safe." Then she descended to the basement, where she brewed a cup of tea, and sat down to a supper of cold sea-fowl, and juicy, white bread of her own baking.

The sleeping rooms were upon the middle story, but the girl began to grow uneasy at the increasing violence of the hurricane, and would not go to bed. Taking a book, she went to the lantern and sat upon a box to read. The whistling of the wind around the glass and the dome of zinc, the booming of the sea against the rock, and the brawling of the waters around her produced such a tumultuous din that persons speaking in the tower would be unable to hear each other.

Then dawned a new terror; and she looked upon the floor with wide-opened eyes and blanched lips. Twice since its establishment, during winter gales, had the tower been swept off the rock. It is true the present structure was substantially built, and was firmly secured to long iron "stringers" bolted to the solid rock; yet the sea was already surging against the base of the tower, and at every blow the edifice quivered till the machinery of steel and brass rang like a number of little bells. Upon the grated, iron pathway running around the lantern inside, she took her stand, and, thence, looked out. The light streamed far beyond the ledge and revealed the full fury of the sea. The agitated waters would recede from the reef upon the windward side like a jumper who runs backward, that he may be able to leap with greater force; then gathered up to the stature of a hill and crowned with roaring foam, it would return with soft tread, but terrible might, scaling the rock, and flinging its white arms around the waist of the tower. Throughout the tumult, flocks of sea-birds, driven from the surface, and bewildered in the dense darkness of the storm, would fly for the light and smite the lantern; and then they would fall backward into the surf, as if struck with a thunderbolt. Other creatures flew with more care; and Nancy shuddered as she saw the gleaming eyes of huge fish hawks outside, and beheld their dusky wings waving at the panes.

Many an hour of terror passed with no employment for the trembling watcher, save when the lamps grew dim and she moved from her standing place to snuff the wick and turn more flame. Stepping nervously down to the basement she found that it lacked only a quarter of four o'clock. In half an hour it would be dawn, and she was cheered by the thought as she re-ascended.