The Frying-pan Shoals, extending out into the ocean from the mouth of the Cape Fear River, are responsible for more wrecks than perhaps any other reef on the Atlantic coast. Kenneth got chummy with the pilots who make Southport their headquarters, and they gladly gave him much lore about the channels, beacons, and the ins and outs of the intricate passages all along the coast. The government requires every vessel above a certain tonnage to take on a pilot; or to be more correct, the vessels are required to pay the pilot’s fee whether his services are accepted or not. As the channel is very difficult, and the fee has to be paid in any case, the skippers usually turned the responsibility of navigating their vessels into port over to the pilot. The charges are rated according to the ship’s depth—the more water she draws, the more difficulty is experienced in sailing her over the bars, and the pilot’s fee is proportionately large.
One day, Kenneth and the mate rowed against the heavy wind a mile and a half to the outer bar, and then went over to the Cape Fear Light.
The keeper was inclined to be churlish at first, but as soon as Ransom began to tell him a little about the cruise, his manner changed instantly; short answers and bored expression gave way to lively interest and voluble requests for more experiences.
“I tell you, Art,” Kenneth began in an aside to the mate, “a short yarn about the cruise is worth a hundred open sesames.”
The keeper led the two boys up the winding stair of the lighthouse tower, and as they went round and round, they could hear above the ring of their feet on the iron steps the howling of the wind about the shaft. The power and majesty of it made them pause a minute to listen, and then they felt the shock of the blast, which made even that sturdy tower quiver. When the top was reached, and a clear unobstructed view could be had, the breath of the youngsters was taken away by the awful fury of the elements battling below them; even the lighthouse keeper was awed by it, and kept silence. From the beach, a little below the foot of the tower, seaward, as far as the eye could reach through the mist and spray, the ocean tossed and rolled. Great hills of water, green and angry, rose as though pushed up from below, their crests lashed into foam and then blown into vapor by the gale; wave succeeded wave, until a mighty host of waters, rank on rank, impelled by the wind, dashed themselves to foam on the ever-resisting shore.
“Oh, this is a fierce place, and no mistake.” The honest keeper’s words took much of the sublimity out of the scene for the boys. “And a terrible place for wrecks,” he continued. “The Frying-pan Shoals run out about twenty-five miles, and vessels are all the time running afoul of them.”
“And in weather like this?” Kenneth inquired.
The keeper made a significant gesture that told, without a word, the horrors of shipwreck, of the despairing efforts of the sailors to work the vessel off the lee shore when the breakers first were seen or heard; of the canvas blown to tatters, the dreadful roar and overpowering rush of the waves driving the vessel on nearer the shoal, staving the boats and washing the crew overboard; and, finally, the sickening jar and shuddering scrape of the ship on the reef. All this the boys saw as the keeper pointed to the seething waters, and to the ribs of a wrecked ship showing black against the white foam of the breakers.
Many, many places he pointed out to them where good ships rested never to sail again.
Arthur and Kenneth went back to the yacht with solemn faces and thoughtful minds, and very thankful that the “Gazelle” lay peacefully at anchor, safe.