There was an anxious look on Dab Kinzer"s face for a moment. Then he shouted,--
"Sharp, now, boys, or we"ll be rolling in the surf in three minutes!
Haul away, d.i.c.k! Haul with him, Ford! Up with her! There, that"ll give us headway."
Ford Foster looked out to seaward, even while he was hauling his best upon the sail halyards. All along the line of the coast, at distances varying from a hundred yards or so to nearly a mile, there was an irregular line of foaming breakers--an awful thing for a boat like "The Swallow" to run into!
Perhaps; but ten times worse for a larger craft, for the latter would be shattered on the shoals, where the bit of a yacht would find plenty of water under her; that is, if she did not, at the same time, find too much water _over_ her.
"Can"t we go back through the inlet in the bar?" asked Ford.
"Not with this wind in our teeth, and it"s getting worse every minute.
No more will it do to try to keep inside the surf."
"What can we do, then?"
"Take the smoothest places we can find, and run "em. The sea isn"t very rough outside. It"s our only chance."
Poor Ford Foster"s heart sank within him, as he listened, and as he gazed ahead upon the long white line of foaming surf and tossing breakers. He saw, however, a look of heroic resolution rising in "Captain Kinzer"s" face, and it gave him courage to turn his eyes again towards the surf.
"The Swallow" was now once more moving in a way to justify her name; and, although Ford was no sailor, he could see that her only chance to penetrate that perilous barrier of broken water was to "take it nose on," as d.i.c.k Lee expressed it.
That was clearly the thing Dab Kinzer intended to do. There were places of comparative smoothness, here and there, in the tossing and plunging line; but they were bad enough, at the best, and they would have been a good deal worse but for that stiff breeze blowing off sh.o.r.e.
"Now for it!" shouted Dab, as "The Swallow" bounded on.
"Dar dey come!" said d.i.c.k.
Ford thought of his mother, and sister, and father; but he had not a word to say, and hardly felt like breathing.
Bows foremost, full sail, rising like a cork on the long, strong billows, which would have rolled her over and over if she had not been handled so skilfully as she really was; once or twice pitching dangerously in short, chopping seas, and shipping water enough to wet her brave young mariners to the skin, and call for vigorous baling afterwards,--"The Swallow" battled gallantly with her danger for a few moments; and then Dab Kinzer swung his hat, and shouted,--
"Hurrah, boys! We"re out at sea!"
"Dat"s so," said d.i.c.k.
"So it is," remarked Ford, a little gloomily; "but how on earth will we ever get ash.o.r.e again? We can"t go back through that surf."
"Well," replied Dab, "if it doesn"t come on to blow too hard, we"ll run right on down the coast. If the wind lulled, or whopped around a little, we"d find our way in, easy enough, long before night. We might have a tough time beating home across the bay, even if we were inside the bar, now. Anyhow, we"re safe enough out here."
Ford could hardly feel that very strongly, but he was determined not to let Dab see it; and he made an effort at the calmness of a Mohawk, as he said, "How about fishing?"
"Guess we won"t bother "em much, but you might go for a bluefish.
Sometimes they have great luck with them, right along here."
CHAPTER XI.
SPLENDID FISHING, AND A BIG FOG.
There is no telling how many anxious people there may have been in that region that night, a little after supper; but there was no doubt of the state of mind in at least three family circles.
Good Mrs. Foster could not endure to stay at home and talk about the matter; and her husband and Annie were very willing to go over to the Kinzers" with her, and listen to the encouraging views of Dabney"s stout-hearted and sensible mother.
They were welcomed heartily; and the conversation began, so to speak, right in the middle.
"Oh, Mrs. Kinzer! do you think they are in any danger?"
"I hope not. I don"t see why there need be, unless they try to return across the bay against this wind."
"But don"t you think they"ll try? Do you mean they won"t be home to-night?" exclaimed Mr. Foster himself.
"I sincerely hope not," said the widow calmly. "I should hardly feel like trusting Dabney out in the boat again, if he should do so foolish a thing."
"But where can he stay?"
"At anchor somewhere, or on the island; almost anywhere but tacking all night on the bay. He"d be really safer out at sea than trying to get home."
"Out at sea!"
There was something really dreadful in the very idea of it; and Annie Foster turned pale enough when she thought of the gay little yacht, and her brother out on the broad Atlantic in it, with no better crew than Dab Kinzer and d.i.c.k Lee. Samantha and her sisters were hardly as steady about it as their mother; but they were careful to conceal their misgivings from their neighbors, which was very kindly indeed in the circ.u.mstances.
There was little use in trying to think or talk of any thing else beside the boys, however, with the sound of the "high wind" in the trees out by the roadside; and a very anxious circle was that, up to the late hour at which the members of it separated for the night.
But there were other troubled hearts in that vicinity. Old Bill Lee himself had been out fishing all day, with very poor luck; but he forgot all about that, when he learned, on reaching the sh.o.r.e, that d.i.c.k and his white friends had not returned. He even pulled back to the mouth of the inlet, to see if the gathering darkness would give him any signs of his boy. He did not know it; but while he was gone d.i.c.k"s mother, after discussing her anxieties with some of her dark-skinned neighbors, half weepingly unlocked her one "clothes-press," and took out the suit which had been the pride of her absent son. She had never admired them half so much before, but they seemed now to need a red necktie to set them off; and so the gorgeous result of d.i.c.k"s fishing and trading came out of its hiding-place, and was arranged on the white coverlet of her own bed, with the rest of his best garments.
"Jus" de t"ing for a handsome young feller like d.i.c.k," she muttered to herself.
"Wot for"d an ole woman like me want to put on any sech fool finery?
He"s de bestest boy in de worl", he is. Dat is, onless dar ain"t not"in"
happened to "im."
Her husband brought her home no news when he came, and d.i.c.k"s good qualities were likely to be seen in a strong light for a while longer.
But if the folk on sh.o.r.e were uneasy about "The Swallow" and her crew, how was it with the latter themselves, as the darkness closed around them, out there upon the tossing water?
Very cool and self-possessed indeed had been Captain Dab Kinzer; and he had encouraged the others to go on with their blue-fishing, even when it was pretty tough work to keep "The Swallow" from "scudding" at once before the wind. He was anxious, also, not to get too far from sh.o.r.e; for there was no telling what sort of weather might be coming. It was curious, moreover, what very remarkable luck they had; or rather, Ford and d.i.c.k, for Dab would not leave the tiller for a moment. Splendid fellows were those blue-fish, and hard work it was to pull in the heaviest of them. That was just the sort of weather they bite best in; but it is not often that such young fishermen venture to take advantage of it. No, nor the old ones either; for only the stanchest old "salts"
of Montauk or New London would have felt altogether at home in "The Swallow" that afternoon.
"I guess I wouldn"t fish any more," said Dab at last. "You"ve caught ten times as many now as we ever thought of catching. Some of them are whoppers too."
"Biggest fishing ever I did," said Ford, as if that meant a great deal.
"Or mos" anybody else, out dis yer way," added d.i.c.k. "I isn"t "shamed to show dem fish anywhar."
"No more I ain"t," said Dab; "but you"re getting too tired, and so am I.