The Secret of the Reef Part 25

"And we can't hold on! It's devilish luck, I say! She has dragged the kedge up to the stream anchor, and is putting her bows in. Still, I'm going to make a try."

Glancing at the sea, Jimmy shook his head. The combers were getting bigger with the rising tide and the sloop plunged into them viciously, flooding her forward deck, and jarring her cable.

"No," he said. "I had trouble in reaching the ladder, and she might drag to leeward before you could get back. The thing's too risky."

Moran, coming aft, felt the bag, and looked at the diving dress with longing, but he supported Jimmy's decision.

"I surely don't want to light out, but we'll have to get sail on her."

Crouching in the spray that swept the bows, they laboriously hauled in the chain with numbed and battered hands, and, leaving Bethune to hoist the reefed mainsail, coiled the hard, soaked kedge warp in the c.o.c.kpit.

Then they set the small storm-jib, and the _Cetacea_ drove away before the sea for the sheltered bight.

"We'd have known how we stood in another hour," Bethune grumbled, shifting his grasp on the wheel to ease his sore wrist.

They were too tensely strung up to talk much after supper, for the weight of the bag was sufficient to indicate the value of its contents, and they thought it better not to break the seals. Jimmy grew drowsy, and he had lain down on a locker when Moran opened the scuttle-hatch.

"Now that it's too late to dive, the wind's dropping and coming off the land," he said.

Jimmy went to sleep, and it was daybreak when he was wakened by an unusual sound. It reminded him of breaking gla.s.s, though now and then for a few moments it was more like the tearing of paper. He jumped up and listened with growing curiosity. The noise was loudest at the bows, but it seemed to rise from all along the boat's waterline. Moran was sleeping soundly, but when Jimmy shook him he suddenly became wide awake.

"What is it?" Jimmy asked quickly.

"Ice; splitting on her stem."

"Then it's too thin to worry about."

"That's the worst kind," Moran replied, slipping into his pilot coat.

"Get your slicker on; I'm going out."

There was not much to be seen when they reached the deck. Clammy fog enveloped the boat, but Jimmy could see that the surface of the water was covered by a gla.s.sy film. He knew that heavy ice is generally opaque and white, but this was transparent, with rimy streaks on it that ran to and fro in irregular patterns. As the tide drove it up the channel, it splintered at the bows, throwing up sharp spears that rasped along the waterline. Still, it did not seem capable of doing much damage, and Jimmy was surprised at Moran's anxious look.

"Shove the boom across on the other quarter!" Moran said sharply.

Jimmy moved the heavy spar, the boat lifted one side an inch or two, and Moran, lying on the deck, leaned down toward the water. Jimmy, dropping down beside him, saw a rough, white line traced along the planking where the water had lapped the hull. It looked as if it had been made by a blunt saw.

"She won't stand much of this," Jimmy said gravely, running the end of his finger along the shallow groove made by the sharp teeth of the splitting ice.

"That's so. I've seen boats cut down in a tide. The trouble is, the stream sets strong through the gut, except at the bottom of the ebb."

Jimmy nodded. This was his first experience of thin sheet-ice, but he could understand the dangerous power it had when driven by a stream fast enough to break it on the planking, so that its edge was continually furnished with keen cutting points. He could imagine its scoring a boulder that stood in its way; while, instead of changing with flood and ebb, the tide flowed through the channel in the sands in the same direction, as tidal currents sometimes do round an island.

Bethune came up and looked over the side. A glance was enough to show him their danger.

"What's to be done?" he asked.

"I don't quite know," said Moran, with a puzzled air. "The ice gathers along the beach, and the patches freeze together as the tide sweeps them out. She'd lie safe where the stream is pretty dead, but there's no place except this bight where we'd get shelter from wind and sea."

"It's plain that we can't stay here, and we'd better get off as soon as possible," said Jimmy. "We can hang on to the wreck unless it blows, but I want the breakers filled before we start."

"It will take us some time," Bethune objected. "I feel I'd rather get up those boxes from the hold."

"So do I," Jimmy rejoined. "But I'm taking no chances when there's a risk of our being blown off the land."

"The skipper's right," declared Moran. "We'll go off with the dory, while he drops her down with the tide."

They helped to shorten cable, and, after breaking out the anchor, pulled the dory toward the beach through the thin ice, while the sloop drifted slowly out to sea. Jimmy was relieved to hear the unpleasant crackle stop, and he leisurely set about making sail, for the wind was light. He must have canvas enough to stand off and on until the others rejoined him.

He found the waiting dreary when he reached open water, for he was filled with keen impatience to get to work. The gold lay in sight in the hold of the wreck, and an hour or two's labor was all that was required to transfer it to the sloop. And it was obvious that this must be done at once, because the drift ice was gathering in the offing, and an on-sh.o.r.e breeze might suddenly spring up. They had nowhere to run for shelter, now that the only safe haven was closed to them. Still, Jimmy felt that he had done wisely in exercising self-control enough to send for the water.

It was almost calm and very cold. Sky and water were a uniform dingy gray, and the mist, which had grown thinner round the land, still obscured the seaward horizon. Once Jimmy thought he made out an ominous pale gleam in a belt of haze, but when it trailed away before a puff of fitful breeze, he saw nothing. For two hours he sailed to and fro in half-mile tacks, finding just wind enough to stem the tide; and then, when his patience was almost exhausted, he felt a thrill of relief as he heard the measured splash of oars. A few minutes later the dory came alongside, and Bethune handed up the casks.

"We had to break the ice with a big stone, and I hardly thought we'd get through," he said. "It froze up again while we carried the first load down."

"It doesn't matter so much now," Jimmy replied. "If all goes well, we should be away at sea by daybreak to-morrow."

While they stowed the breakers the wind dropped, and Jimmy, watching the sails shake slackly, made a gesture of fierce impatience.

"The luck is dead against us! It looks as if we should never get at that gold! There's a two-knot stream on her bow, and she'll drift to leeward fast."

"Then we'll tow her!" Moran said stubbornly. "Get into the dory; you haven't carried those breakers, and I'm not used up yet."

Though Jimmy had rested since the previous evening, he found the work hard. He had suffered from his exertions under water during the past week, and the tide ran against them, and the long heave threw a heavy strain upon the line as the sloop lifted. The smaller craft was often jerked back almost under her bowsprit, and it needed laborious rowing to straighten out the sinking line. Still, they made progress, and at last dropped anchor beside the wreck early in the afternoon.

"Now," said Moran, "I guess we'll go down unless you want your dinner before you start. We haven't had breakfast yet."

Bethune laughed and looked at Jimmy.

"Could you eat anything?" he asked.

"Not a bite! I don't expect ever to feel hungry until we get those boxes up. Lash the ladder while I couple the pipe to the pump!"

Bethune was the first to go down. When he came back after an unusually long stay, he reported that he had been unable to extricate the nearest box, though he had cleared the sand from it before he was forced to ascend. Jimmy took his place, and worked savagely, dragging out the box and moving it toward the bulkhead, but in the confined s.p.a.ce, which was further narrowed by some broken timbers, he could not lift it through the opening. While he tried, with every muscle strained, a piece of timber shifted in the sand beneath his feet; and Jimmy lost his balance and fell forward, putting out his lamp.

He felt smaller and less buoyant when he got up, his breath was hard to get, and he grew uncomfortably hot. Then it flashed upon him with a shock of unnerving fear that his air-pipe was foul, and for a moment he grappled sternly with his dismay. There was no time to lose, but he must keep his head. Pa.s.sing his hand over the canvas dress, which felt ominously slack, he fumbled at the lamp. As he did so a wavering beam of light shot out, shining uncertainly through the water; and he supposed that in falling he must have broken the circuit by pressing the switch.

Lifting the lamp, he saw that the tube was bent sharply round a ragged timber, and while his heart throbbed painfully and his breath grew labored, he moved back and reached for it; but he found his hands nerveless and his legs unsteady, and when he stooped to loose the line his head reeled and he pitched forward across the timber, grasping the line as he fell.

CHAPTER XVIII-BOGUS GOLD

Cold as it was, Jimmy lay for a long time on the sloop's deck when he had been stripped of the diving gear. How he had crawled out of the hole and climbed the ladder was not clear to him; he thought that he must have untangled the line as he fell and have been driven forward by an overpowering longing for the upper air.

He found some trouble in explaining to Moran what had happened, for he felt limp and shaky yet. And he shuddered at the thought of going down again.

"When we once get the box out of the hold," he said, "there should be no trouble in swinging it on board."

Moran smoked out a pipe before he took his turn. When the copper helmet disappeared, Jimmy got a firm grip on the signal line; and while he waited he looked about.