Page:The Firm of Gridlestone (1890).djvu/375

Rh seamen clambered in after. Ezra and his father sat in the sheets, while the others rowed. The sea was running very high—so high that when the dingeydinghy [sic] lay in the trough of a wave they could see neither the boat for which they were steering nor the shore which they had left—nothing indeed but the black line of hissing water above their heads. At times they would go up until they hung on the crest of a great roller and saw the dark valleys gaping beyond into which they were forthwith precipitated. Sometimes, when they were high upon a wave, the fishing-boat would be between the seas, and then there would be nothing of her visible except the upper portion of her mast. It was only a couple of hundred yards, but seemed a long journey to the shivering fugitives.

"Stand by with the boat-hook!" Sampson cried at last. The dark outline of the boat was looming immediately above them.

"All right, father."

The dingeydinghy [sic] was held alongside, and the two gentlemen scrambled aboard as best they could, followed by their companions.

"Have you the painter, Jarge?"

"Ay, ay."

"Make it fast aft then!"

The lad fastened the rope which held the dingeydinghy [sic] to a stanchion beside the tiller. Then he and his father proceeded to hoist the foresail so as to get the boat's head round.

"She'll do now," Sampson cried. "Give us a hand here, sir, if you don't mind."

Ezra caught hold of the rope which was handed him and pulled for some time. It was a relief to him to have something, however small, which would distract his mind from the events of the night.

"That will do, sir," the skipper cried, and, leaning over the bows, he seized the anchor which Ezra had hauled up, and tumbled it with a crash on the deck.