Softly he spoke to his father but there was no answer. Exhaustion and the peace of the open sea had overcome the stricken man and he was asleep.
Encumbered by stillness and smoke, the night passed with appalling slowness. The distant thunder with its promise of rain died away. Half a dozen times Peter lighted matches and looked at his watch. At last it was three o'clock and the horizon of murk and smoke that shut him in receded as dawn advanced. Then came a sudden keen breeze, like the last sweeping of a great broom, and he could see the coast. His own heart was thrilled by the sight of it, for behind the menacing headland of barren rock that rose like a great gargoyle hundreds of feet above the lower cliff was a strip of water which he had once hazarded in a dead calm and which led back half a mile between towering walls of rock and naked ridges into that very chaos of wildness which he had wanted for a hiding-place.
Scarcely had this moment of exultation possessed him when the wind died again. At the same time a clearer light diffused itself over the sea. The horizon drew itself back like a curtain and half a mile away he saw an object that sent his heart into his throat.
For a few moments he neither moved nor seemed to breathe as he stared at a swiftly approaching skiff. Then he looked at his father. Donald McRae had not awakened. A livid scar lay across his eyes as if a red-hot iron had burned out his sight. His hands were blistered, his lips were swollen and his neck and shoulders were scarred and covered with the ointment which Simon had used. Yet—even then—his father slept! The horror of it choked Peter and his soul cried out for vengeance against those who had made this wreck of a man. He turned and his hand rested upon his rifle. He no longer feared the law or Aleck Curry or Carter, the ferret. His desire at first was to kill them. With astonishing calmness he waited, watching the approaching skiff. When it was two hundred yards away he picked up his rifle.
He chose the small of Aleck's back for his first shot and raised his gun. In the same moment he observed that with Carter in the stern and Aleck amidships the bow of the skiff was high out of water. It was this situation which saved Aleck and Peter's first bullet crashed through the boat an inch or two below the water line. He followed with two other shots. The effect was almost instantaneous. Aleck Curry lurched away from the oars and the skiff came within an ace of upsetting. In another moment the quick-witted Carter had called Aleck into the stern and there both crouched, their combined weight raising the shattered bow above the water line while Carter stripped himself of his shirt.
The shots roused Donald, and with an effort he drew himself up beside Peter.
"What is it?" he demanded. He turned his scarred face toward Peter and then with a strange cry covered his face with his hands. "My God, I can't see!" he cried. "Peter—I can't see!"
In that darkest moment of his life Peter thanked God the wind came and filled the sail of Simon's boat and that neither Carter nor Aleck Curry shouted after them or made a sound that his father might hear, and like an inspiration a lie came to his lips—he had done some poor shooting at a flock of mallards! He spoke cheerfully of his father's efforts to see, telling him it would be days before he could hope for vision when his eyes were swollen and scarred by burns. And Donald, seeing nothing of the agony in Peter's bloodless face, smiled cheerfully up at the clearing sky in spite of his pain. He did not mind so much about his hands, he said, but it was a hardship to have his eyes covered as Peter was bandaging them now because he wanted to see as much as he could of his boy in the short time they would be together. There was a note of happiness in his voice which was in strange contrast to the pathos of his appearance and his helplessness.
And Peter fought to keep up that spirit of cheer and of gladness that was in Donald McRae's heart. But his own heart was breaking—for he knew that his father was blind.