CHAPTER XV. The Passage of the Reefs.
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The danger to which May was now exposed
was most imminent. While she
had been rescuing her father, the boat,
left to the waves, had been thrown
among the breakers, upon which it was
wildly tossed. Both of them now began
to row hard to escape being pushed upon
the rocks.
But they had become too far involved
in the vortex of the surf, and May saw
that their only hope lay in endeavoring
to steer the boat over the ledge upon the
summit of a wave; for there were huge
billows rolling on that, having struck the
rocks, overleaped them to the other side
in mighty cataracts.
She had no sooner conceived this way
of safety, a forlorn hope indeed it seemed,
than, bidding Tom to row with all his
strength, she sprang to the stern and
seized the fixed helm of the boat. All
this while the sea was at one moment
tossing the skiff almost into the air, and
at another moment burying it in deep
chasms; while the raging surf poured
over it in torrents. Nothing but the net-guard
which each had bound about their
bodies, and which firmly held them in the
boat, saved both of them from being
dashed into the sea a dozen times.
There was light enough upon the dan
ger before them from the white foaming
surges to enable her to feel that only a
special Providence could carry her safely
through the danger. Already the boat
was in a situation in which any other
would have been swamped; but her buoyancy
and capability to resist every power
that would operate to overset her, saved
it. Although it was filled with water, it
floated as lightly as a cork.
We have been some minutes describing
the situation of May; but the events
passed with far greater celerity than we
can record them. It was not fifty seconds
after she had taken her father on
board, before she was in the midst of the
driving, snow-white surf, and deafened
by the roar and almost blinded by the
spray that nearly overwhelmed them
with its force and density. She was, as
we have already intimated, a skilful boatwoman,
and had been more than once the
instrument of saving lives perilled in a
storm. She was also cool and feared not
death; for the good and brave never fear
death. Fear is the hand-maiden of a
guilty conscience. May was one of
those rare spirits that look only to duty;
and when they see it before them, they
take no thought of consequences. Therefore,
at this moment, which would have
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shaken the stoutest heart, and which had
made a woman of William Northrop,
she was perfectly self-possessed. The
dwarf was always the echo of his sister.
He depended on her always, and so that
she was fearless, he was also.
May could see at a glance that her situation
was one of extreme peril. To retrace
the boat's course was impossible.
They must either be dashed to pieces on
the ledge, over which the sea was tumbling
with terrific fury, or go safely over
on the crest of some billow.
For this opportunity she watched. Encouraged
by her voice, Tom kept the
boat back from the surges for a minute,
when, seeing a billow rolling towards her,
she shouted to the dwarf to back water
to meet it. The wave caught up the
skiff upon its foaming crest and carried
it forward with resistless force towards
the wall of reefs. The dwarf saw at
once the danger and the safety, without
any direction from his sister. By strong
strokes he kept the boat backing upon
the top of the wave; to keep it from being
pitched over its range, while May
steered it with unerring accuracy, keeping
its bow directly forward in the course
the wave was moving. It was a terrible
moment. Life and death hung upon it.
The huge billow on which they rode
struck the ledge with a tremendous
shock, over-leaping it high in the air,
bearing the life-boat onward with lightning
speed, amid a blinding cloud of
spray.
If the strength of the up-bearing wave
had failed, or the rocks of the reef had
covered a broader space, the boat would
have dropped like an earthen vessel from
between the hands, and been shivered to
atoms upon the black, half-submerged
ledge beneath. But the strength and
power of the huge billows held it up,
and — breathless moment!—carried it
safely over the ledge, and cast it, shear
downwards, into the foaming eddies
leeward of the rocks.
The boot went deep beneath the surface,
and for an instant May believed
that it would never rise more. But its
buoyancy and peculiar construction, rendered
it superior to the ordinary accidents
of the sea, by which other boats
have been destroyed. It threw off the
superincumbent weight of water, and
once more sought the surface. As soon
as May could catch her breath, she instinctively
caught the helm to direct the
boat's head, knowing that it would be
submerged by the next blllow, unless
propelled to a distance from the ledge.—
The dwarf, who had minded the immersion
no more than a water-dog, at her
voice, plied the locked oars, and the escaped
skiff went bounding from the roaring
surges behind it, as if conscious of
its deliverance. In a few moments they
were in a smoother sea, for the surf
stretching across the mouth of the bay,
like a sea wall, broke the fury of the
waves.
May's first emotion was gratitude to
Heaven, for her wonderful escape through
dangers so appalling; her next thought
was of her father. He was no longer insensible
as he was when taken on board,
and placed under the net; for the life-boat
was provided with small nets to
throw over persons or goods, to save
them from being washed into the sea
again. The nets were provided with
hooks which were hoooked into rings on
the gunwales. Beneath this net William
Northrop remained perfectly secure.—
But the force of the billows which could
not carry him back into the sea, restored
him to consciousness, which he had lost
by being struck in the breast by a fragment
of his boat, just as the dwarf was
reaching down to grasp him:
He now sat up and said, though confusedly—
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`May, my child! Are we safe? Are
you?'
`Past all danger, dear father,' she
cried, embracing him. `Are you hurt?'
`No. I am well again,' he answered.
`Unhook the cords! There will be no
more sea to pass.'
`No, sir. We are saved; you and I,
and Tom. For a few moments I gave
up all hope!'
`Let me thank you for my life, my
child,' he said, taking her hand as she
unloosed the net-guard. `But for you,
God knows where I should now have
been!'
`Think no more of the danger. God
sent me to rescue you.'
`I shall never forget this deed, May!'
`Tom, too!'
`Yes, and Tom, too. There, my boy,
take my hand and forgive me all. I have
treated you badly. I am sorry.'
Tom gratefully grasped his father's
hand, and kissed it passionately, his
heart dissolved at once by the first kind
tones he had ever heard from his lips;
for William Northrop had hated his child
from the first day of its birth, for its deformity.
The surf-skiff was still moving swiftly
up the bay before the gale, Tom's oars
being now no longer necessary. May
sat in the stern steering, holding her father's
hand in her's; and refusing to
let him steer, though he assured her
that he was now `as good a man as ever.'
Many expressions of gratitude to his
child escaped his lips as he sat by
her; and every little while he would look
at Tom as he crouched in the bottom of the
boat to escape the wind, which chilled
him through his wet clothes, and say
kindly,
`Poor Tom! I have done thee wrong
in thy day. I will atone for it after this.'
`Yes, dear father, Tom has saved
your life, not I!' she said warmly. `If
he had refused to come, I could have
done nothing.'
`Tom is a good son. And did you
know that it was the shallop? Could
you see me from the cliff?'
`Yes; by the lightning which lighted
up all the sea like noon-day. Tom said
it was you. My fears told me it was
you, dear father; but, at all events, there
was a fellow-being in danger; and I
could not stand on shore in security and
see him perish with the means to save.'
`And so through your filial love and
humanity you have saved your father's
life, dear child!'
`I am rewarded, sir!' she answered,
with deep joyful emotion. `How is it
you have been so long away, dear father?
'
`I was detained,' he answered, in a
tone that showed he had rather the enquiry
had not been made; `I hoped to
have got into the bay before the storm
reached us, or I should have run in behind
White Island, as I ought to have
done. But when I saw the little cloud in
the west, I was not more than nine miles
distant, and believed I should make the
bay; but I never saw a tornado walk so
fast as this did.'
`It came on with terrible power; I had
a misgiving that you were in it.'
`It is my luck to loose vessels—here
is the second I have lost in three months;
and in losing the shallop I have been a
greater loser than you suppose. But not
now can I tell you how. The wind
seems to be abating now—it has done its
work on me and mine. Didn't I see a
large ship dismasted running into the
bay?'
`Yes, sir—there it is,' she answered,
pointing to the place where the frigate
was anchored, about half a mile to windward
of them.
`I can see her; she looks very large,
so far as I can make her out.'
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`She is an English frigate, I believe,
sir.'
`An English frigate!' repeated Northrop
quickly, and starting with evident
amazement. `She must have had a pilot;
who could have run her in? I know
of no fisherman who would do that service
for an enemy's ship; and I don't
think the frigate carries a pilot for every
bay she may be driven into in a storm.
It must be the Cœur de Lion, for I had
intelligence she was on the coast hereabouts,
' he added, in a half-musing tone.
`I do not know whether it is or not,
sir,' responded May; who did not care to
make known to her father, after the free
expression of his opinions, the agency of
her lover in saving the ship. For an instant
a painful thought passed across
her mind, that George might have incurred
a heavy responsibility by piloting the
ship in, and that he might suffer. But
she dismissed the thought, conscious that
humanity and Heaven would defend him
against all the malevolent aspersions of
his fellows.
For the rest of the passage across.
May was silent, giving her attention to
the guiding of the boat over the caressing
waters, which now served to carry it
forward rather than to menace it, as heretofore,
with destruction.
`We will not pass too near the frigate,
child,' said Northrop, as he touched the
helm and kept away a little. `We may
be ordered on board: and my fair daughter
is too sacred in my eyes to be made
the gazing stock of the rude young officers.
Keep away a little, May.'
The boat passed some distance to the
westward of the frigate and in full sight;
for the dark clouds had been driving onward
towards the north, bringing lighter
and more broken ones, till objects could
be seen indirectly, and even the dark
line of the cliffs made out from the frigate's
deck without the aid of the flashes
of lightning. These grew less and less
frequent, and the thunder rolled distinctly
in the east, as if the storm had spent
its power in that region, and was carrying
devastation and death to other scenes.
The wind also moderated, though still
blowing with resistlesa power. Gradually
as the life-boat neared the beach the
storm lulled, and here and there a solitary
star was visible in a breach in a thick
mass of clouds. William Northrop and
his daughter landed together while the
dwarf remained to empty the water out
of the boat, and carry it back whence he
had taken it. The return of the boat in
all its progress had been watched from
the cliff by George and the English crew,
and no sooner had May touched the
beach than she was in his arms. She
blushingly disengaged herself, though as
overjoyed to see that he was safe as he
was to find her so. George covered his
warmth of meeting with May by a hearty
and warm welcome of her father, though
he did not fold the old man to his heart,
or glue his lips to his.
A few words between the lovers exylained
the position and situation each
had been in. Northrop did not look very
kindly on the seven English sailors, and
being told they were wrecked, he ordered
Tom to take them on board their vessel
in the life-boat.
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Ingraham, J. H. (Joseph Holt), 1809-1860 [1847], The surf skiff, or, The heroine of Kennebec (Williams Brothers, New York) [word count] [eaf210].
