Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/232

222 than the vessel's width, presented itself. To the last, like British seamen, all had stood at their posts. Round whirled the wheel, about sprang the ship as though understanding what was being done. The hungry waves to the starboard dashed themselves on the rocks that the mainyard almost touched as it passed. A huge wave lifted the fragile Mimosa on its breast, and just in the nick of time, turning the vessel, as with unseen hands, fairly hurled her through the narrow opening.

A cheer, such as Englishmen alone can raise, even when death stares them in the face, rang out above the Titanic thudding of the breakers claiming their prey. The little vessel glided across calm waters within the bar.

"If the lagoon runs round clear to the lee, we need not even beach her," the captain exclaimed. In a few moments, as it seemed, the inner point was rounded, and, sheltered by the island-rock, in perfect calm the gear-strewn vessel lay.

Those who have battled a week on the Indian Ocean against the stiffest monsoon, spray painting white with salt the topmost ring of the leviathan's rolling funnel, to glide in an instant into still waters beneath the welcome cliffs of Socotra; those who, after three months' voyage, having been hurled at last, by the storm with which Australian shores often welcome the wanderer, within the overlapping, precipice-gates of Sydney harbour, to find its bosom without a ripple, the flowers in the gardens of Watson's Bay scarce bending to the breeze; those who have looked sudden death in the face, in a moment surveying all the voyage of life and conjuring up last fleeting pictures of blanched, praying ones at home—only they can estimate the feelings with which the small crew of the Mimosa dropped anchor in the calm lagoon, and lowered boats to reconnoitre the garden-isle that had