Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 68

"Land ahead."

Jack looked out, and there was a mountain of jet rising out of the sea, and, to a landsman's eye, within a stone's throw of them.

"Is it the French coast, sir? I must have been asleep."

"French coast? no, Channel Island--smallest of the lot."

"Better give it a wide berth, sir. We shall go smash like a teacup if we run on to one of them rocky islands."

"Why, Jack," said David, reproachfully, "am I the man to run upon a leesh.o.r.e, and such a night as this?"

"Not likely. You will keep her head for Cherbourg or St. Malo, sir; it is our only chance."

"It is not our only chance, nor our best. We have been running a little ahead of this gale, Jack; there is worse in store for us; the sea is rolling mountains high on the French coast this morning, I know. We are like enough to be p.o.o.ped before we get there, or swamped on some harbor-bar at last."

"Well, sir, we must take our chance."

"Take our chance? What! with heads on our shoulders, and an angel on board that Heaven has given us charge of? No, I sha'n't take my chance. I shall try all I know, and hang on to life by my eyelids.

Listen to me. 'Knowledge is gold;' a little of it goes a long way. I don't know much myself, but I do know the soundings of the British Channel. I have made them my study. On the south side of this rocky point there is forty fathoms water close to the sh.o.r.e, and good anchorage-ground."

"Then I wish we could jump over the thundering island, and drop on the lee side of it; but, as we can't, what's the use?"

"We may be able to round the point."

"There will be an awful sea running off that point, sir."

"Of course there will. I mean to try it, for all that."

"So be it, sir; that is what I like to hear. I hate palaver. Let one give his orders, and the rest obey them. We are not above half a mile from it now."

"You had better wake the landsman. We must have a third hand for this."

"No," said a woman's voice, sweet, but clear and unwavering. "I shall be the third hand."

"Curse it," cried David, "she has heard us."

"Every word. And I have no confidence in Mr. Talboys; and, believe me, I am more to be trusted than he is. See, my cowardice is all worn out.

Do but trust me, and you shall find I want neither courage nor intelligence."

David eyed her keenly, and full in the face. She met his glance calmly, with her fine nostrils slightly expanding, and her compressed lip curving proudly.

"It is all right, Jack. It is not a flash in the pan. She is as steady as a rock." He then addressed her rapidly and business-like, but with deference. "You will stand by the helm on this side, and the moment I run forward, you will take the helm and hold it in this position. That will require all your strength. Come, try it. Well done."

"How the sea struggles with me! But I am strong, you see," cried Lucy, her brow flushed with the battle.

"Very good; you are strong, and, what is better, resolute. Now, observe me: this is port, this is starboard, and this is amids.h.i.+ps."

"I see; but how am I to know which to do?"'

"I shall give you the word of command."

"And all I have to do is to obey it?"

"That is all; but you will find it enough, because the sea will seem to fight you. It will shake the boat to make you leave go, and will perhaps dash in your face to make you leave go."

"Forewarned, forearmed, Mr. Dodd. I will not let go. I will hold on by my eyelids sooner than add to your danger."

"Jack, she is on fire; she gives me double heart."

"So she does me. She makes it a pleasure."

They were now near enough the point to judge what they had to do, and the appearance of the sea was truly terrible; the waves were all broken, and a surge of devouring fire seemed to rage and roar round the point, and oppose an impa.s.sable barrier between them and the inky pool beyond, where safety lay under the lee of the high rocks.

"I don't like it," said David. "It looks to me like going through a strip of h.e.l.l fire."

"But it is narrow," said Lucy.

"That is our chance; and the tide is coming in. We will try it. She will drench us, but I don't much think she will swamp us. Are you ready, all hands?"

"Oh! please wait a minute, till I do up my hair."

"Take a minute, but no more."

"There, it is done. Mr. Dodd, one word. If all should fail, and death be inevitable, tell me so just before we perish, and I shall have something to say to you. Now, I am ready."

"Jump forward, Jack."

"Yes, sir."

"Stand by to jibe the foresail."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"See our sweeps all clear."

"Ay."

David now handled the main sheet, and at the same time looked earnestly at Lucy, who met his eye with a look of eager attention.

"Starboard a little. That will do. Steady--steady as you go," As the boat yielded to the helm, Jack gathered in on the sheet, took two turns round the cleat, and eased away till the sail drew its best: so far so good. Both sails were now on the same side of the boat, the wind on her port quarter; but now came the dangerous operation of coming to the wind, in a rough and broken sea, among the eddies of wind and tide so prevalent off headlands. David, with the main sheet in his right hand, directed Lucy with his left as well as his voice.

"Starboard the helm--starboard yet--now meet her--so!" and, as she rounded to Jack and he kept hauling the sheets aft, and the boat, her course and trim altered, darted among the breakers like a brave man attacking danger. After the first plunge she went up and down like a pickax, coming down almost where she went up; but she held her course, with the waves roaring round her like a pack of h.e.l.l-hounds.

More than half the terrible strip was pa.s.sed. "Starboard yet," cried David; and she headed toward the high mainland under whose lee was calm and safety. Alas! at this moment a snorter of a sea broke under her broadside, and hove her to leeward like a cork, and a tide eddy catching her under the counter, she came to more than two points, and her canvas, thus emptied, shook enough to tear the masts out of her by the board.

"Port your helm! PORT! PORT!" roared David, in a voice like the roar of a wounded lion; and, in his anxiety, he bounded to the helm himself; but Lucy obeyed orders at half a word, and David, seeing this, sprang forward to help Jack flatten in the foresheet. The boat, which all through answered the helm beautifully, fell off the moment Lucy ported the helm, and thus they escaped the impending and terrible danger of her making sternway. "Helm amids.h.i.+ps!" and all drew again: the black water was in sight. But will they ever reach it? She tosses like a cork. Bang! A breaker caught her bows, and drenched David and Jack to the very bone. She quivered like an aspen-leaf but held on.

"Starboard one point," cried David, sitting down, and lifting an oar out from the boat; but just as Lucy, in obeying the order, leaned a little over the lee gunwale with the tiller, a breaker broke like a sh.e.l.l upon the boat's broadside abaft, stove in her upper plank, and filled her with water; some flew and slapped Lucy in the face like an open hand. She screamed, but clung to the gunwale, and griped the helm: her arm seemed iron, and her heart was steel. While she clung thus to her work, blinded by the spray, and expecting death, she heard oars splash into the water, and mellow stentorian voices burst out singing.