"I think not, Mr. Fleming," I replied as cheerfully as possible; "we shall be out of danger in a few minutes—or on the rocks," I added to myself, as I closed the hatch.
It was a breathless and awful time, and I confess that for a few moments I forgot the very existence of Elsie, as I calculated over and over again the chances as we neared the Point. It depended on a hair, and when I looked at Mackenzie, who was silent and gloomy, I feared the worst. Yet it shows how strangely one can be affected by one's fellows that when I saw Harmer and Walker standing side by side their almost cheerful faces made me hope, and I smiled. But we were within three cables' length of the Point, and the roar of the breakers came up against the wind until it deafened us. I watched the men at the wheel, and I saw Matthias flinch visibly as though he had been struck by a whip. I didn't know why it was, I am not good at such things, but I took a deeper dislike to him that moment than I had ever had, and I stepped up to him. Now in what followed perhaps I myself was to blame, and yet I feel I could not have acted differently. Perhaps I looked threatening at him as I approached, but at any rate he let go the wheel and fell back on the gratings. With an angry oath I jumped into his place, struck him with my heel, and then I saw Walker make a tremendous spring for me, with an expression of alarm in his face, as he looked beyond me, that made me make a half turn. And that movement saved my life. I felt the knife of Matthias enter my shoulder like a red-hot iron, and then it was wrenched out of his hand and out of the wound by Walker.
In a moment the two were locked together, and in another they were separated by Mackenzie and the others; and Walker stood smiling with the knife in his hand. Although the blood was running down my body, I did not feel faint, and kept my eye fixed on the course kept by the Vancouver, while Mackenzie held me in his arms, and Harmer took the lee wheel from me.
"Luff a little!" I cried, for we were almost on the Point, and I saw a rock nearly dead ahead. "Luff a little!" and they put the helm down on a spoke or two.
The moments crawled by, and the coast crawled nearer and nearer, as I began to feel I was going blind and fainting. But I clung to life and vision desperately, and the last I saw was what I can see now, and shall always see as plainly, the high black Point with its ring of white water crawl aft and yet nearer, aft to the foremast, aft to the mainmast and then I fell and knew no more. For we were saved.
When I came to, we were before the wind, and I lay on a mattress in the cabin. Near me was Elsie, and by her Helen, who was as white as death. Both were watching me, and when I opened my eyes Helen fell on her knees and suddenly went crimson, and then white again, and fainted. But Elsie looked harder and sterner than I had ever seen her. I turned my face away, and near me I saw another mattress with a covered figure on it, the figure of a dead man, for I knew the shape. In my state of faintness a strange and horrible delirium took possession of me. It seemed as if what I saw was seen only by myself, and that it was a prophecy of my death. I fainted again.
When I came to we were at anchor in San Francisco Bay, and a doctor from the shore was attending to me, while Mackenzie stood by, smiling and rubbing his hands as if delighted to get me off them. I looked at him and he knelt down by me.
"Mackenzie, old man," I whispered, "didn't I see somebody dead here?"
"Aye, poor chap," he answered, brushing away a tear; "it was poor Walker."
"Walker!" I said. "How was that?"