Insensibly
the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or
two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became
oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from
the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note
was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck -
'Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!'
The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were
gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.
'M-a-r-k three!.... M-a-r-k three!.... Quarter-less three! .... Half
twain! .... Quarter twain! .... M-a-r-k twain! .... Quarter-less - '
Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far
below in the engine room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to
whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on - and
it is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was
watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was
calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on a
spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible
marks - for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea - he
would meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk,
one caught a coherent sentence now and then - such as -
'There; she's over the first reef all right!'
After a pause, another subdued voice -
'Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!'
'Now she's in the marks; over she goes!'
Somebody else muttered -
'Oh, it was done beautiful - BEAUTIFUL!'
Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the
current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the
stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work;
it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than
that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were
closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so
imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the
strongest impulse to do SOMETHING, anything, to save the vessel. But
still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the
pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
'She'll not make it!' somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was
down to -
'Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... Seven-
and - '
Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to the engineer -
'Stand by, now!'
'Aye-aye, sir!'
'Seven-and-a-half!
