“It’s jest as I tell ye, Master Dunn,” the old sailor began. “I was a slidin’ down the bowline when I heerd him tell ye to let him go fust. Now ’tisn’t nateral for a Capt’n to leave a stranded ship ’fore his men, an’ I smelt mice ’t once. So when my feet touched the boat I stayed right thar, holdin’ on to the rope. His feet hadn’t more than struck the stern when I felt that end of the craft swingin’ off, an’ I knew what he was up to, an’ ’spected to hear ye go chunk into the water. I let go the line an’ leaned over the side of the boat ready to grab ye when ye struck. But ye didn’t come, an’ then I knew ye’d gone back to the deck an’ would come down the other rope. So I rose to my feet to catch hold of it agin, an’ jest then the Capt’n calls out: ‘We are all here, lads, clear away.’ Jack Slade was next to me, an’ hearin’ the command, he whips out his knife an’ cuts the line ’fore I could say a word. I caught it though, an’ tried to hold the boat thar till ye could climb down, but the waves swept her out from under me quicker’n a flash, an’ all I could do was to tell ye to go back.”
I grasped the honest fellow’s hand, saying with much emotion:
“It was kind of you, Bill, to try to thwart the Captain’s purpose, but you have lost your only chance of escape by it. You’d better left me to my fate.”
“Not by a long way!” he retorted emphatically. “I told ye Bill Howard wouldn’t forget your kindness, an’ I’ve come back to help ye out of this scrape.”
“How?” I asked incredulouslv. “We are drawing nearer the reef every moment, and once we strike, it will be all up with the vessel and with us.”
“We hain’t goin’ on any reef tonight,” he persisted. “I thought it all out while holdin’ on to that line. Thar’s another anchor in the hold. We’ll get it out an’ down, an’ ’twill hold us till high tide. Then we’ll cut the cables an’ go straight over the reef into the harbor. A vessel did it here much as ten years ago. I heerd ’em tell ’bout it when I was here on the Sally Ann from New Bedford.”
They say a drowning man will catch at a straw, and I certainly was given new hope by my companion’s words. Together we went forward, got off the hatch, and with much difficulty hoisted out the anchor, though we shipped considerable water while at the job. To bend on a cable and carry it astern, where we had decided to put it out, was an easier task. But as we were about to throw the iron into the sea, I suddenly let go of it, crying out:
“Look quick, Bill. We are no nearer the reef than we were a half-hour ago. I believe the anchor we already have out has caught and is holding.”
He glanced toward the reef, and then, letting go his own hold on the spare anchor, answered joyously:
“Ye are right, Master Dunn, an’ we can keep this iron to hold us after we are over the reef.”