Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/231

Rh was running. The captain was evidently seeking to round the nearer of these points that lay to the starboard.

The dullest landsman's eye could recognize that there was but small chance of passing that cruel cliff.

Within an encircling ridge of rock lay comparatively calm water and a shelving beach. Hurled on that outer wall of coral, however, no man could hope for escape to the palm-clad slopes that seemed, tantalizingly, to offer an arbour of repose, "so near and yet so far." The doctor secured himself, as directed, upon the bridge beside the captain.

After a while it was evident that the agile craft, answering splendidly as she was to the helm, though almost broadside to the tempest, could never round the bluff or escape to the open sea.

"Let her run," shouted the captain, seeming to think that, dashed high on the outer rocks, some might be hurled over the bar into the calm beyond. As the doomed vessel flew, as if relieved to have the strain withdrawn and the matter settled, towards the cruel rocks, the breakers that were dashing scores of feet high above the bar revealed how slender was the hope of one man escaping to tell the tale of the last of the Mimosa. The line of breakers, stretching two miles in each direction, dead ahead, seemed but a hundred yards off. For one second the captain grasped the doctor's hand as he passed, with eyes, still staring into the yeasty Maelstrom before them.

"We've done our best, doctor. This is the end of it."

"No good ends," replied the other calmly.

The next second the captain started, as if struck. "Hard aport!" he suddenly shouted. That moment a narrow opening through the bar, seemingly no broader