“Port light? That’s bad for us. Look sharp to the wheel. And for’ard, who’s got the axe--you, Fred? Well, get up the other axe and stand by with it you, Tim. Slash to it, both of you, when I give the word. Can you hear me?”
He stepped back to the break and tried to catch John’s voice for himself. Not getting it easily, he jumped into the rigging. “What’s that last--of that one sailin’----”
“Another vessel driftin’ down--and another--two draggin’ and two sailin’, but not makin’ much headway. An awful wind aloft, Skipper.”
“Aye, John--and below, too. But what’s that? Hell!” He dropped to deck and leaped to the wheel. He was just in time to dodge the side-sweep of a vessel’s bowsprit as she swirled by his quarter. Another moment and it caught the stern davits, the dory slung up to them, and then the end of the _Pantheon’s_ main boom. Cr-s-sh!--cr-s-sh! The bowsprit of the stranger cracked sharp off, the _Pantheon’s_ dory went to kindlings, and her boom smashed at the slings. “Hi-i! you blasted loon, where you goin’?”
“Hi-i!” came back a yet hoarser voice--“couldn’t help it--parted both cables.”
Dannie fanned the snow from his eyes. “If that ain’t hell--talkin’ to men you can’t see and they driftin’ away to be lost! And the dory gone, though it’s more than a dory we’ll need to-night.”
“Near’s I can make out, there’s four or five vessels bearin’ down----”
“Wait-- I’ll be with you.” Aloft climbed the Skipper. ’Twas a fight to go aloft, such was the force of the wind and so wildly swayed the rigging of the old _Pantheon_.
From the deck the crew gazed after the Skipper till they could see his swaying shoulders no more. Soon he came flying down, and after him came John, both by way of the snow-slushed, slippery halyards.
“Cut!” roared the Skipper before he had fairly hit the deck--“and at the wheel there, let her pay off.”
“Cut--cut!” Away went the twelve-inch rope in stubborn convolutions through the hawse-holes. Around came the _Pantheon_, and by her bow came driving a great white shadow. White sail against white snow on a black night she came driving on, and only a memory of a dim light to mark her when the shadow of the sails could not be made out.
“Aye, and draggin’ fast as some vessels ever sail.”