An exclamation escaped his lips. He drew his hands hastily across his eyes. The face, the crafty smile, were there again. The lips appeared to move. They seemed to be saying:
“The shoal is just there. Plenty da lobsters. Plenty big. Wanta go. Boat too small, mine. Too far froma da shore. Plenty da lobster. Get reech queek.”
“Well, anyway, he told the truth,” Don said to himself. “There are lobsters aplenty.” He glanced down at a crate where a mass of legs, eyes and great green pinchers squirmed and twisted while the boat, worried by the ever increasing storm, rolled and pitched like a bit of drift in a mountain cataract.
He threw a look at the two water drenched girls, Pearl and Ruth, who sat huddled in the prow, and his brow wrinkled.
“Have to get out of this,” he told himself, taking a fresh grip on his steering stick. “Only question is, where?”
That indeed was the question. Fifteen miles to the westward was the mainland and rocky shores little known to him. He was far from his usual fishing ground. Somewhere out there in the fog, perhaps very near, scarcely a mile long, a mere granite boulder jutting out of the sea, was the island called Monhegan. Smaller rocks jutting up from the sea formed a safe harbor for this island. Once there he could weather the storm in safety. Again he shaded his eyes to peer into the fog.
For a full moment, with straining eyes, he stood there motionless. Then of a sudden a sigh of satisfaction escaped his lips. Towering a hundred or more feet above the sea, a bold headline loomed before him.
“Black Head,” he whispered. “That’s better.”
Touching his lever, he set his boat at a slight angle to the rushing waves, then took a deep breath. The battle was begun, not finished. The channel that led to Monhegan’s cozy harbor was narrow. It was guarded by nature’s sentinels—black and frowning rocks on one side, reefs booming and white on the other. Many a stauncher boat than his had turned back before these perils. The rocky shore of Monhegan has taken its toll of lives all down the years.
“It is to be a battle,” he exulted, “and I shall win!”