Seizing the helpless Clark, he flung him by main strength into safety. They were scarcely under cover when a big roller tumbled on board on the port side. The Hailoong had turned almost completely around, and was fighting her way out to sea.
All afternoon and far into the night the brave little vessel battled with the waves to get back to the coast of the mainland. At last her anxious officers were rewarded by a distant, hazy gleam of light through the dense, water-laden atmosphere. Fifteen seconds passed, almost minutes in length. Again the white beam shot athwart the darkness. Then regularly and growing ever nearer, at intervals of fifteen seconds, the great white light flashed, showing the way to safety. It was Turnabout lighthouse, behind which lay Haitan Straits, winding among the islands, and between them and the mainland shore.
Into one of their many natural harbours the Hailoong cautiously felt her way, and cast anchor in a quiet basin among the hills. There nothing but the torrents of rain falling and the roar of the surf beyond the island barrier remained to tell of the dangers they had passed through. Then Captain Whiteley left the bridge for the first time in more than twenty-four hours. Neither he nor his chief officer had found a chance to sleep for forty-eight hours.
For years afterwards only three persons knew exactly what happened on the bridge that day. Then when Captain Whiteley was commanding a Castle boat running to the Cape, and McLeod had a big trans-Pacific liner, the quarter-master, who with a Chinese sea-cunny had been at the Hailoong's wheel, felt absolved from the promise he had made to McLeod to keep the secret, and told what he knew.
When the momentary lifting of the clouds showed the captain that the wind combined with the ebb of the tide had carried them past the line of entrance to the harbour, towards the shoaling beach on which the surf was beating, he shouted to his mate:
"My God, McLeod, we're lost!"
"Not so bad as that yet, sir!" was the reply.
"There isn't room to turn and clear that shoal water. To starboard it's stern on: to port it's broadside on."
"We haven't tried, sir!"
"Then, for God's sake, McLeod, try!"