“I dun know,” said Rokens, who sat beside Ailie, close to the embers of their fire, with a glowing cinder from which he re-lighted his pipe for at least the twentieth time that night. “You never can tell wot’s a-goin’ to turn up. I’ll go out, cap’en, if ye like, and see that all’s fast.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Tim; you may make a bolt across to it, and heave another rock or two on the planking if it seems to require it.”
The seaman rose, and putting aside his pipe, threw off his coat, partly in order that he might present as small a surface to the wind as possible, and partly that he might have a dry garment to put on when he returned. As he opened the little door of the hut a rude gust of wind burst in, filling the apartment with spray, and scattering the embers of the fire.
“I feared as much,” said the captain, as he and the men started up to gather together the pieces of glowing charcoal; “that shows the wind’s shifted another point; if it goes round two points more it’ll smash our boat to pieces. Look sharp, Tim.”
“Lean well against the wind, me boy,” cried Briant, in a warning voice.
Thus admonished, Rokens issued forth, and dashed across the open space that separated the hut from the low ledge of coral rock behind which the keel of the intended boat and its planking were sheltered. A very few minutes sufficed to show Tim that all was fast, and to enable him to place a few additional pieces of rock above the heap in order to keep it down. Then he prepared to dart back again to the hut, from the doorway of which his proceedings, were watched by the captain and as many of the men as could crowd round it.
Just as the harpooner sprang from the shelter of the rock the blast burst upon the bank with redoubled fury, as if it actually were a sentient being, and wished to catch the sailor in its rude grasp and whirl him away. Rokens bent his stout frame against it with all his might, and stood his ground for a few seconds like a noble tree on some exposed mountain side that has weathered the gales of centuries. Then he staggered, threw his arms wildly in the air, and a moment after was swept from the spot and lost to view in the driving spray that flew over the island.
The thing was so instantaneous that the horrified onlookers could scarcely credit the evidence of their eyes, and they stood aghast for a moment or two ere their feelings found vent in a cry of alarm. Next instant Captain Dunning felt himself rudely pushed aside, and Briant leaped through the doorway, shouting, as he dashed out—
“If Tim Rokens goes, it’s Phil Briant as’ll go along with him.”
The enthusiastic Irishman was immediately lost to view, and Glynn Proctor was about to follow, when the captain seized him by the collar, dragged him back, and shut the door violently.