“‘We got to fight fer it to-night,’ said I. ‘Better try the close-reefed mainsail before it’s too late. A bit o’ fore-reachin’ an’ we’ll clear.’
“‘’Twon’t stand,’ says he, ‘’twon’t stand ten minutes in this breeze. Let her go. If she won’t go clear we’ll run her fer Ocracoke. It’s high water at eight-bells to-night.’
“That may have been good judgment, but you know that entrance is a warm place at night in a roarin’ northeaster. I got a bit nervous an’ spoke up again after an hour or two.
“‘Better try her with the mainsail; we’ve got to fight her off,’ I said again.
“‘’Taint no use,’ said he. ‘Let her go. A man never dies till his time comes.’
“I’d heard that sayin’ before, but I never knew just how a feller could reckon on his time. Seemed to me somebody’s was comin’ along before daylight. Finally I kept on asking the old man an’ argufyin’—for there was the two women—an’ he gave in. Before twelve that night we had her under a single reef and shovin’ off for dear life. It ware blowin’ harder now, an’ the first thing away went that staysail. Then we tried a bit o’ jib, but she gave a couple o’ plunges and drove her head under a good fathom. When she lifted it up the jib ware gone.
“There we ware with the old hooker a-broachin’ to an’ no head sail on her. The seas ware comin’ over her like a cataract and the dull roar soundin’ louder an’ louder. There ware the two women below——
“Still the fight waren’t half over. Ther ware the new foresail to close reef. It would have held an hour or two. That would have driven us off far enough to have gone through the slue. But no. The old man had had enough.
“‘Take in the mainsail,’ he bawled, and all hands wrastled for half an hour with that sail while all the time we were goin’ fast to the south’ard. ‘Close reef foresail,’ says he; ‘we’ll try an’ run her through.’ Then he took the lashin’s off the wheel.
“There ware no use sayin’ nothin’ more. We ware hardly able to speak as it was. We put the peak o’ that foresail on her an’ the old man ran the wheel hard up. It ware near daybreak now, and she paid off an’ streaked away before it through a roarin’ white sea. Just as she struck her gait we saw the flash o’ the Hatteras Light.