“Three and a half,” he cried monotonously.
The Gar trembled like a wounded and dull animal. The solid seas were reaching hungrily over Woolfolk’s legs. A sudden stolidity possessed him. He thrust the pole out deliberately, skillfully:
“Three and a quarter.”
A lower sounding would mean the end. He paused for a moment, his dripping face turned to the far stars; his lips moved in silent, unformulated aspirations—Halvard and himself, in the sea that had been their home; but Millie was so fragile! He made the sounding precisely, between the heaving swells, and marked the pole instantly driven backward by their swinging flight.
“Three and a half.” His voice held a new, uncontrollable quiver. He sounded again immediately: “And three-quarters.”
They had passed the bar.
XV
A GLADNESS like the white flare of burning powder swept over him, and then he became conscious of other, minor sensations—his head ached intolerably from the fall down the stair, and a grinding pain shot through his shoulder, lodging in his torn lower arm at the slightest movement. He slipped the sounding pole into its loops on the cabin and hastily made his way aft to the relief of Poul Halvard.
The sailor was nowhere visible; but, in an intermittent, reddish light that faded and swelled as the cabin door swung open and shut, Woolfolk saw a white figure clinging to the wheel—Millie.