To leave the ship at such a time as this seemed madness. Yet there had come to her a sense of guidance. In times of great crises she had more than once experienced just this. Now she moved like one directed by a master hand.
The water appeared blacker now. The flashes of light were vivid beyond belief. The swells were coming in. Great sweeping swells, they lifted the little rowboat, tied on the lee side of the wreck, to a prodigious height, then dropped it into a well of darkness.
“Drop—drop your bag into the boat when it comes—comes up.” Wind seemed to fill the girl’s ears. It caught her words and cast them away.
Down went the bags, and with them the boat.
One, two, three, up surged the boat again.
“Now! Over you go!” Seizing Greta, she fairly threw her into the boat.
Her heart sank with the boat. It rose with it as well. Jeanne was next. A moment more and she was over the side, clinging to the seat, cutting the rope, seizing the oars, then shoving off, all in one wild breath.
“We—we’ll keep—keep our stern to the storm!” she screamed. “Head in toward Duncan’s Bay. Some sandy beaches there. Mi—might land. Mi—” The wind blew the words from her throat.
The cove that forms an approach to Duncan’s Bay is shaped like the top of an hourglass. At the seaward side it is a mile wide. At the land side it is tapered to a narrow channel. By great good fortune the wind was shoreward and slightly toward the entrance of Duncan’s Bay. The big girl’s hope was to work her boat back into this cove where, more and more protected by the reef, she might find calmer water.
To ride a great storm in a rowboat is always thrilling, but not certainly too dangerous. If the waves are long and high, you may ride to their crest, glide down the other side, then rise again.