“All out!” cried Arthur, as the Spray grated gently on the bottom, “We will lighten her all we can,” and they sprang overboard into water scarcely above their knees.
“Now, Joe,” said Arthur, “you and Henry take the head-line out over the bows and go ahead and pull for all you are worth. George and I will get alongside and push, and keep her in the channel, and Tom and Bob can get aft and push. We have got to rush her over that shallow place, and we must not let her stop, for if she once hangs in the centre we cannot budge her. The Spray is not a ninety-footer, but she’s got enough pig iron in her for ballast to hold her high and dry if she once sticks.”
The boys seized hold quickly, and the Spray, lightened of her load, slid along, at first sluggishly, and then gathering speed, as the twelve strong, brown, boyish arms pulled and tugged and pushed.
“Jump her, now, boys! Jump her!” cried Arthur, as they neared the shoal. “We’re doing it. Don’t let her stop, now! Oh, she mustn’t stop! We’ve got to put her over or die.”
And the little Spray seemed to feel the thrill and joy of freedom throughout its timbers; for at the words it surged forward with a rush, as though it would take the bar at a flying leap. The white sands reached up from the bottom, and the whole bar seemed to be rising up to hold the boat prisoner, as the water shoaled. But the little Spray kept on.
It hung for one brief, breathless moment almost balanced on the middle of the bar, and the white sands thought they had it fast; but the next moment it slid gently from their grasp, gave a sort of spring as it felt itself slipping free, and the next moment rode easily in clear water, just over the bar.
The next instant six exultant boys, their faces blazing with excitement and exertion, had scrambled aboard, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize the halyards.
They hoisted the sails on the Spray again in a way that would have made Captain Sam himself sing their praises, and now, with evening coming on, there was just enough breeze left in among the rocks to waft them gently along out of the inlet.
They watched breathlessly, as they neared the entrance to the outer bay, for a glimpse of the Nancy Jane; but the Nancy Jane, good boat though she was, was just a moment too late. Scarcely had they turned the little bluff and were hidden behind it, on their way whither they might choose, when the Nancy Jane rounded to at the entrance to the channel.
“It’s all done,” Captain Sam had exclaimed, as he threw the wheel of the Nancy Jane over and came up into the wind, but when he looked to see the Spray, she was not there. Not so much as a scrap of a sail nor the merest fragment of a hull, absolutely nothing.