Swept Out to Sea / Or, Clint Webb Among the Whalers

he Day Dawn Upon

heartily scared the instant I realized that the Wavecrest was adrift and

although I did open one and was tempted to shriek for help. But that would have been a ridiculous thing to do-and useless, as well. Had

he was, her head was right and wind and tide were sweeping her on. She might be piled up on either shore at the mou

et at them than I could get out of the cabin. And although I might be able to do nothing to help myself or m

I had anything to use as a battering ram, I would have begun on the door. But there seemed nothing to hand that would help me in that way. I examined th

e of the cabin could be turned up against the bulkhead, and at each end of the bunks was a flat piece of steel fifteen or ei

e evening before. I thrust the point of its heavy blade into a crack and snapped the steel square off.

e hatch, close to one side. I slipped the closed knife up between the bar and the door for a block against which to prize, caught the end of the bar with both hands, and threw all

n the other, I splintered the woodwork around the bolts, and bent the bolts themselves, so that the hatch b

left my hat behind. The Wavecrest was pitching and yawing pretty badly now and before

leaped down into the cockpit and quickly lowered the centerboard. Almost at once the Wavecrest began to ride more evenly. I could see little bu

ail and gafftopsail. Really, to sail her properly there should have been a crew of two aboard; but under the present circumstances I felt that one person aboard th

drive. Letting her drive! why, there wasn't a thing I could do to change her course. She was rushing on through

een let down from the sky to the sea. It is seldom that there is not some little light playing over the surface of the water. This night a palpable clo

lashed the tiller-fastening it in the bights of two ropes prepared for that purpose, and crept back into the cabin again. It

that mask the entrance to Bolderhead Harbor. It was a veritable hurricane behind us. The wind was actually blowi

r. I fixed the hatch so that it would slide back and forth properly, however. Then I lit my spirit lamp and made som

ial gale. It might be a week before the storm would br

lf out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea. My only hope then was that I might be rescued by

abin with no hope of escape therefrom, I felt that I should be more on the alert to seize any opportunity for escape were I at the tiller. So I carried a Mexican poncho w

ow had the sloop capsized. Afterward I realized

oat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain se

peril. The wind was shifting bit by bit, too. My compass told me that the Wavecrest was now being driven s

uch safer to remain in the stern of the sloop than to move about at all. I knew we were traveling much faster tha

ish-if not wrong-thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise. Other wandering craft might not escape the rocks about the bea

my confidence, in the morning my mother would be informed immediately of my accident. Perhaps, after

aused me to be nailed in, well knowing that I had gone aboard the sloop to sleep, I was equally confi

r-to-be-forgotten night. Sometimes, I presume, I lost myself and slept for a few minutes; but the hours dragged on so dismally, and I was so unc

st expanse of empty, heaving drab sea, across which the gale hurried sheets of cold and biting rain-not a sign of land behind me-not a sail against the equ