“Eighteen fathom and goin’ into it straight’s ever a vessel c’n go,” said Oddie. “Wicked ’tis, but the one thing’ll make me laugh when we go——”
“Sixteen fathom!” from Martin.
“Sixteen? She’s sure shoaling——”
Oddie was at the wheel himself then, and the Delia was beginning to feel the pounding. They could not see the sky at all, it was that black, but all around they could see the combers breaking white—so white that they made a kind of light of their own. And then it was, with the Lord knows how much wind behind them and seas mast-head high and the little vessel taking it fair abeam, that the crew of the Delia and the crew of the Eldorado guessed what was running in Patsie Oddie’s mind. He was to drive her across the bar! With all the sail in the Delia on her, to let her take the full force of it and bang her across the shoals, where soon there would not be enough water to let her set up on an even keel!
Martin Carr was heaving the lead all the time, and all noted how he made himself heard when it came to ten fathom.
“Ten fathom!” the crew repeated, and murmured it over till one got courage to ask, “Is it going to drown us you are, Captain Oddie?”
“I’m trying to save you, boys,” he answered, and his voice was as tender as could be and yet be heard above a roaring gale.
“Nine and a half,” and then, “Nine fathom!” came from Martin Carr, barely able to hold his place by the rail, the vessel was pitching so.
It was at eight fathoms that Artie Orcutt raised a cry of protest, and, hearing that, Oddie ordered Martin to sound no more. “Bring the lead here, Martin,” said Oddie, and taking a big bait knife he always kept on the house, with one stroke cut the lead-line off short. Then he opened the slide of the cabin companion-way and hove the lead on to the cabin floor with a “There, now, maybe we are goin’ to be lost. I think myself that maybe we will, but some of ye mayn’t die of fright now, anyway.”
She was fair into it then, making wild work of it, with Oddie himself to the wheel, and all his great strength needed to hold her. He called one of his men to help him once, and he, feeling the full force of it, now and again would start to ease her up a little, but the moment a spoke went down so much as a hair’s breadth Patsie Oddie’s big arms would work the other way. “Maybe you think this is a place to tack ship,” Oddie said once, and the wheel stayed up and she took it full force.