With utmost caution I headed the boat a few points to westward, and began to pull aslant the waves, with the wind on our port bow. It was a ticklish moment, for I did not know how the gig would handle. Without the drag of our abandoned cask, she might well be expected to fall off into the trough of the sea.
The struggle was now on in desperate earnest. But as I bent to my oars with all my skill and strength, I realized by the way the gig responded to my efforts that we had at least a fighting chance. Yet it was no easy matter to hold the bows quarteringly to wind and waves as we shot up and down the dizzy slopes, and Yoritomo was kept busy bailing out the water that all too frequently poured in over the rocking gunwales.
At last, through the howling of the gale and the slashing roar of the rain on the waters, I heard a deeper note, the welcome boom of the surf on the west shore. Whether we were as yet abreast the cape above Uraga I could not tell, but I held on as before, regardless of whatever reefs or shoals might lie off this rocky coast. Soon the surf roar, which had sounded abreast of us, seemed to fall away. I gave a shout, and bent to my oars with redoubled energy. We were drifting past the point, out into the turn of the bay beyond.
After a quarter-hour or so, to my vast relief the force of the wind lessened and the waves ran lower. We were edging around the cape, under the high lee of the westerly trending shore. Another quarter-hour, and we were in comparatively quiet water.
“Tomo,” I called, “shall we attempt a landing? We can make it with ease under the shelter of the hills.”
“So near across the point from Uraga?” he answered. “Could we not coast up the west shore? Every mile we float nearer to Yedo is two miles of walking saved.”
“But what if we should fetch up on a lee shore? You’ve marked more than one promontory on the west coast.”
“Hold farther out, then,” he said. “By morning we might drift all the way up the bay and across the Shinagawa Shoals, into the mouth of the Sumida River.”
“Clear to Yedo?” I cried. “Yet your chart makes it less than thirty miles, and it’s only a question of holding the boat a few points aslant the wind. We’ve seen how lightly the gig rides. There’s only the danger of those promontories, and I’ve the wind to steer by. We’ll do it, Tomo!”
“Commodore Perry may already be at Nagasaki,” he added, by way of final argument for haste.