“Whaf-for I want dat?” he inquired. “Lots of good he gwine do me down here!”
Then all hatches were battened down. Captain Marsh reached up to shake the hand which Orde, stooping, offered him.
“I'll try to bring her back all right, sir,” said he.
“To hell with the tug!” cried Orde, impatient at this insistence on the mere property aspect. “Bring yourself back.”
Captain Marsh deliberately lit another cigar and entered the pilot-house with the other men.
“Cast off!” he cried; and the silent crowd heard clearly the single sharp bell ringing for attention, and then the “jangler” that called for full speed ahead. Awed, they watched the tiny sturdy craft move out into the stream and point to the fury of the open lake.
“Brave chaps! Brave chaps!” said Dr. McMullen to Carroll as they turned away. The physician drew his tall slender figure to its height. “Brave chaps, every one of them. But, do you know, to my mind, the bravest of them all are that nigger--and his fireman--nailed down in the hold where they can't see nor know what's going on, and if--if--” the good doctor blew his nose vigorously five or six times--“well, it's just like a rat in a hole.” He shook his head vigorously and looked out to sea. “I read last evening, sir,” said he to Bradford, “in a blasted fool medical journal I take, that the race is degenerating. Good God!”
The tug had rounded the end of the pier. The first of her thousand enemies, sweeping in from the open, had struck her fair. A great sheet of white water, slanting back and up, shot with terrific impact against the house and beyond. For an instant the little craft seemed buried; but almost immediately the gleam of her black hull showed her plunging forward dauntlessly.
“That's nothin'!” said the tug captain who had first spoken. “Wait 'til she gets outside!” The watchers streamed down from the pier for a better view. Carroll and Miss Heinzman followed. They saw the staunch little craft drive into three big seas, each of which appeared to bury her completely, save for her upper works. She managed, however, to keep her headway.
“She can stand that, all right,” said one of the life-saving crew who had been watching her critically. “The trouble will come when she drops down to the vessels.”