第26章

Now they were almost opposite the aperture and between the giant cliffs that rose on either side of the narrow entrance a sight was revealed that filled their hearts with renewed hope and rejoicing, for a tiny cove was seen to lie beyond the fissure--a cove with a long, wide, sandy beach up which the waves, broken at the entrance to the little haven, rolled with much diminished violence.

"Can you hold her alone for a second, Byrne?" asked Theriere."We must make the turn in another moment and I've got to let out sail.The instant that you see me cut her loose put your helm hard to starboard.She'll come around easy enough I imagine, and then hold her nose straight for that opening.It's one chance in a thousand; but it's the only one.Are you game?""You know it, cul--go to 't," was Billy Byrne's laconic rejoinder.

As Theriere left the wheel Barbara Harding stepped to the mucker's side.

"Let me help you," she said."We need every hand that we can get for the next few moments.""Beat it," growled the man."I don't want no skirts in my way."With a flush, the girl drew back, and then turning watched Theriere where he stood ready to cut loose the sail at the proper instant.The vessel was now opposite the cleft in the cliffs.Theriere had lashed a new sheet in position.Now he cut the old one.The sail swung around until caught in position by the stout line.The mucker threw the helm hard to starboard.The nose of the brigantine swung quickly toward the rocks.The sail filled, and an instant later the ship was dashing to what seemed her inevitable doom.

Skipper Simms, seeing what Theriere had done after it was too late to prevent it, dashed madly across the deck toward his junior.

"You fool!" he shrieked."You fool! What are you doing?

Driving us straight for the rocks--murdering the whole lot of us!" and with that he sprang upon the Frenchman with maniacal fury, bearing him to the deck beneath him.

Barbara Harding saw the attack of the fear-demented man, but she was powerless to prevent it.The mucker saw it too, and grinned--he hoped that it would be a good fight; there was nothing that he enjoyed more.He was sorry that he could not take a hand in it, but the wheel demanded all his attention now, so that he was even forced to take his eyes from the combatants that he might rivet them upon the narrow entrance to the cove toward which the Halfmoon was now plowing her way at constantly increasing speed.

The other members of the ship's company, all unmindful of the battle that at another time would have commanded their undivided attention, stood with eyes glued upon the wild channel toward which the brigantine's nose was pointed.They saw now what Skipper Simms had failed to see--the little cove beyond, and the chance for safety that the bold stroke offered if it proved successful.

With steady muscles and giant sinews the mucker stood by the wheel--nursing the erratic wreck as no one might have supposed it was in him to do.Behind him Barbara Harding watched first Theriere and Simms, and then Byrne and the swirling waters toward which he was heading the ship.

Even the strain of the moment did not prevent her from wondering at the strange contradictions of the burly young ruffian who could at one moment show such traits of cowardliness and the next rise so coolly to the highest pinnacles of courage.As she watched him occasionally now she noted for the first time the leonine contour of his head, and she was surprised to note that his features were regular and fine, and then she recalled Billy Mallory and the cowardly kick that she had seen delivered in the face of the unconscious Theriere--with a little shudder of disgust she turned away from the man at the wheel.

Theriere by this time had managed to get on top of Skipper Simms, but that worthy still clung to him with the desperation of a drowning man.The Halfmoon was rising on a great wave that would bear her well into the maelstrom of the cove's entrance.The wind had increased to the proportions of a gale, so that the brigantine was fairly racing either to her doom or her salvation--who could tell which?

Halfway through the entrance the wave dropped the ship, and with a mighty crash that threw Barbara Harding to her feet the vessel struck full amidships upon a sunken reef.Like a thing of glass she broke in two with the terrific impact, and in another instant the waters about her were filled with screaming men.

Barbara Harding felt herself hurtled from the deck as though shot from a catapult.The swirling waters engulfed her.

She knew that her end had come, only the most powerful of swimmers might hope to win through that lashing hell of waters to the beach beyond.For a girl to do it was too hopeless even to contemplate; but she recalled Theriere's words of so short a time ago: "There's no hope, I'm afraid;but, by George, I intend to go down fighting," and with the recollection came a like resolve on her part--to go down fighting, and so she struck out against the powerful waters that swirled her hither and thither, now perilously close to the rocky sides of the entrance, and now into the mad chaos of the channel's center.Would to heaven that Theriere were near her, she thought, for if any could save her it would be he.

Since she had come to believe in the man's friendship and sincerity Barbara Harding had felt renewed hope of eventual salvation, and with the hope had come a desire to live which had almost been lacking for the greater part of her detention upon the Halfmoon.

Bravely she battled now against the awful odds of the mighty Pacific, but soon she felt her strength waning.More and more ineffective became her puny efforts, and at last she ceased almost entirely the futile struggle.

And then she felt a strong hand grasp her arm, and with a sudden surge she was swung over a broad shoulder.Quickly she grasped the rough shirt that covered the back of her would-be rescuer, and then commenced a battle with the waves that for many minutes, that seemed hours to the frightened girl, hung in the balance; but at last the swimmer beneath her forged steadily and persistently toward the sandy beach to flounder out at last with an unconscious burden in his mighty arms.

As the man staggered up out of reach of the water Barbara Harding opened her eyes to look in astonishment into the face of the mucker.