This impressed the Labrador skippers. 254
“Small blame t’ you, Skipper George,” one declared, “if you do lose her.”
Well satisfied with the evidence he had manufactured to sustain the story of wreck, Skipper George returned to the schooner.
“Well,” he drawled to the clerk, “I got my witnesses. They isn’t a man ashore would put t’ sea the morrow if the weather comes as it promises.”
The clerk sighed and anxiously frowned. Skipper George, infected by this melancholy and regret––for the skipper loved the trim, fleet-footed, well-found Black Eagle––Skipper George sighed, too.
“Time t’ turn in, Tommy,” said he.
The skipper had done a good stroke of business ashore. Sir Archibald had indeed ordered him to “drive” the Black Eagle.
And in the rising wind of the next day while the Spot Cash lay at anchor in Tilt Cove and Archie’s messages were fleeting over the wire to St. John’s––the Black Eagle was taken to sea. Ashore they advised her skipper to stick to shelter; but the skipper would have none of their warnings. Out went the Black Eagle under 255 shortened sail. The wind rose; a misty rain gathered; fog came in from the far, wide open. But the Black Eagle sped straight out to sea. Beyond the Pony Islands––a barren, out-of-the-way little group of rocks––she beat aimlessly to and fro: now darting away, now approaching. But there was no eye to observe her peculiar behaviour. Before night fell––driven by the gale––she found poor shelter in a seaward cove. Here she hung grimly to her anchorage through the night. Skipper and crew, as morning approached, felt the wind fall and the sea subside.
Dawn came in a thick fog.