"There; she's over the first reef all right!"
After a pause, another subdued voice:—
"Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!"
"Now she's in the marks; over she goes!"
Somebody else muttered:—
"Oh, it was done beautiful—beautiful!"
Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do something, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
"She'll not make it!" somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was down to—
"Eight-and-a-half!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... Seven-and—"