He was gazing after them, and looking anxiously for nearer lights or sails, when he was aware of a low, dark object just before him, rising from the deep. What could it be?—with something white flashing upon it! And what was the sound he heard?
"The Cow and Calf!" he exclaimed, with sudden excitement, almost as if he had seen a friend.
Chapter VIII.
THE COW AND CALF.
"The Old Cow" and "The Calf" are two enormous ledges lying not far asunder, within sight from the coast in clear weather. "The Cow" is never completely submerged; her bare brown back appears above the highest tides.
"The Calf" is not so fortunate; the sea must be very calm at high water, when it is not buried in the surf.
Near one end of it, to mark the position of the dangerous reef, a pole is anchored, rising out of the water with a slant that has gained for it the name of "The Calf's Tail." Often at high tide the tail only can be seen sticking out of the sea.
What Olly saw and heard was the billows combing over the end of one of those huge rocks. He wondered why he hadn't thought of them before; for it now occurred to him that if he could land on "The Old Cow," he might safely pass the night on her back, and be seen from the shore, or from some passing craft, in the morning.
But which of the ledges was he approaching? Familiar as their forms were to him, seen from the shore, he could not in his strange position, in the night, and amid the dashing waves, decide whether he was coming upon "The Old Cow" or "The Calf."
Trembling with fresh hope and fear, and paddling cautiously, he strained his eyes in the darkness, to get the broad outline of the ledge against the faint sky-line. There was something awful in the sound of the surf on those desolate rocks. The surges leapt and fell, rushing along the reef and pouring in dimly-seen cataracts over the ledges, their loud buffets followed by mysterious gurglings and murmurings, which might well appall the heart of a wave-tossed boy.