There'll be worse ones--this boat is not through rooting yet."

Neither was she. Ahead the tug loomed, a great dark shape; and the pulse of her engines was lost in the roiling water rising from the screw blades and the hiss of it as it raced by the row-boat. There was a dim blur of light from one of the after-cabin portholes and the shadow of figures pa.s.sing to and fro inside could be seen. The decks were deserted. It was too cold to brave the night wind except under necessity--a night wind that cut through the pea-jackets and ear-caps and thick woollen gloves of the two men in the rowboat. Captain Barney felt a fierce resentment that the _Quinn's_ men should be so warm and comfortable while he was shivering.

"Christmas Eve!" he exclaimed. "Fine, ain't it?" and he flailed his arms about to keep the blood in circulation.

"Christmas Eve," said Dan solemnly, as though to himself, "the finest I ever spent"; and he added apologetically, "even if I am making an eternal fool of myself."

On they sped. Frequently the tug would hit a large stretch of clear water, and at such times the jingle-bell would sound in the engine-room and the _Quinn_ would shoot forward at a rate that fairly lifted the rowboat out of the water, while Dan, kneeling astern, oar in hand, muscles tense, and mind alert, was ready to do anything that lay in his skill to prevent an untoward accident.

Swish! Zip! and the rowboat would suddenly shoot to one side or the other, compelling Dan to dig his oar way down into the water, bending all his strength in efforts to keep the bow straight.

"She's rooting every second," he grumbled, opening and shutting his hand to drive away the stiffness and then casting a vindictive glance at Captain Barney, the source of all the trouble.

And as for the tugboat-skipper, he sat and watched his companion, and resolved that, after all, there were a few things he did not know about watermanship.

Between the shadowy banks of the Narrows shot the _Quinn_. Out of the harbor in a rowboat! Even professional Battery boatmen do this about once in a generation. The immense, shadowless darkness smote their eyes so that they turned to the cabin light for relief.

There was likely to be little ice out there, and the northwest wind had knocked the sea flat, as Dan knew would be the case when he figured his chances at the start. It was bad enough though, for there was certain to be something of a swell--and other things; and now that he was in the midst of it, he had grave doubts as to what would happen. But his strange exaltation rose supreme to all fears; no danger seemed too great, no possibility too ominous, to dampen the ardor of this, his first big act of self-sacrifice. The song the Salvation woman sang pa.s.sed through his mind.

"Gawd is mighty and grateful; No act of my brother's or mine Escapes His understandin', In the good old Christmas time."

"As soon as we get near the _Kentigern_," he said, "we'll cut loose from the _Quinn_, and while she is warping alongside we'll make a dash, and you can hail 'em and get 'em to lower a ladder. You can beat Skelly that way. That's what I'm banking on."

"You just put me alongside and I'll see to the rest," replied the Captain impatiently. He would have attempted to scale the steel sides of the vessel themselves, if only to escape from that little boat, tailing astern of the _Quinn_ in the heart of the darkness, rooting, twisting, threatening to dive under the water.

"What are you goin' to do after I get aboard?" asked Captain Barney, rubbing his hands as though the victory were already won. "I declare, I never thought of you! You can't row back."

Dan raised his head angrily and started to utter a sneering reply, when the first good swell caught the boat--a great lazy, greasy fellow. The _Quinn_ went up and then down, and after her shot the rowboat, like a young colt frisking at the end of her tether, then careening down the incline on her side as though to ram the stern of the tug ahead, which, fortunately, was climbing another hill.

What the rowboat had been through before was child's play to this, and Dan's face grew very stern. Reaching down with one hand, he seized the other oar and shoved it along to Captain Barney. "Put that down on the port side. Hang on for your life and keep her steady!" he cried.

Then he gave his attention to his side of the boat while Captain Barney struggled in the bow. It was a fight that would have thrilled the soul of whoever could have seen it. But that is always the way in the bravest, most hopeless fights--no one ever sees them. They are fought alone, in the dark, on the sea; and sometimes the lion-hearted live to make a modest tale of it around a winter's fire; but more often the sequel is, "Found drowned"--if even that.

Captain Barney, frightened into desperate courage, and Dan, in grim realization that the measure of his good deed this night was the measure of the soul he was getting to know, fought sternly. They were on the open sea with all its mystery and lurking fate, and the dark was all about. There was not even the impression of distance; the swells arose as though at their elbows, tossed them with great, slimy ease, let them down again, plucked them this way and that, while the humming tow-line ran out to the vague, phantom, reeling tug ahead.

There was a suspicion of snow in the veiled sky, and the wind stabbed like a knife. Twice the tug cut through a field of ice making out on an offsh.o.r.e current, and the thumping the little row-boat received seemed likely to rend her into drift-wood. But that was only one of the chances; and the two men went on into the icy blast with jaws so tightly clenched that their cheek muscles stood out in great knots.

The silence, the danger, the vagueness hung heavily. As Dan cast his eyes gloomily into the wake of the tug, he saw a dark object shoot out of the foam and dart down upon them like a torpedo; in fact a torpedo could not have worked more serious effect upon the boat than did that heavy, water-soaked log.

"Starboard your oar!" shouted Dan, at the same time digging his own oar deep down on the port side and pulling upon it with all the magnificent strength of his arms until it bent like a reed. There was just time to avert the direct impact, not to escape altogether.

It was a glancing blow just above the water line; it punched a great, jagged hole and gouged out the paint clear to the stern. Dan drew a long breath and murmured in a half-sick voice, "They might as well kill a man as scare him to death," while Captain Barney's face made a gray streak in the darkness.

The _Quinn_ was now past the point of Sandy Hook and was skirting the sh.o.r.e. The m.u.f.fled beat of the breakers could be heard through the gloom, which was riven every second by the great, swinging search-light in the Navesink. Not a mile ahead was the bar; and the masthead light of the _Kentigern_ could be seen, twinkling like a planet.

In twenty minutes the dark hull of the _Kentigern_ came looming out of the night. A hail shot from the _Quinn_, and a faint reply came back.

Dark figures could now be seen, outlined by the cabin lights in the forward section of the tramp.

"h.e.l.lo, what tug is that?" sounded from the bridge. "Is that you, Captain Barney?"

"No, it's the _Quinn_, Cap'n Jim Skelly. Hodge is laid up to-night; I'll take you into dock."

"All right; come aboard," and after a minute's scurrying of figures on the deck a flimsy companion-ladder rattled down over the side of the freighter.

Dan heard it and ground his teeth in disappointment.

"Gripes!" he exclaimed. "They've that ladder down an hour before I thought they would. Now we're up against it, sure."

With a growl Captain Barney whipped out his knife and made a pa.s.s at the tow-line. He missed it and dropped back in the stern as Dan struck at him with his oar.

"Wait!" hissed the young boatman. "We'd have no chance at all. We've got to get nearer. The tug 'd beat us a mile. Sit tight, you old fool!"

Captain Barney recognized the wisdom of the words with a groan. He was far past the arguing point. The tide was boiling past the side of the vessel, swashing like a mill-race. All they could do under present conditions was to cast off when the tug was very near the freighter, cut in across, and get under the ladder before the tug could properly warp alongside.

Nearer lumbered the _Quinn_. When within twenty feet of the _Kentigern_ she swung broadside on, ceasing all headway and drifting into position on the tide.

"Now, then," cried Dan, suddenly leaping into the thwarts and manning the oars. "Haul on the line. Bring her right under the Quinn's stern and then cut, quick!"

Hand over hand hauled Captain Barney and the rowboat came under the stern with a jump. Then he cut the line. Dan dug his oars into the water and the slim boat shot for the ladder, while the great tug came down, more slowly, on the side. Ten, twenty strokes; and then, as Dan with a great sigh unshipped his oars, Captain Barney chuckled, seized the sides of the ladder, and hauling himself on the bottom rung, skipped up with the agility of a monkey.

With a swish and a splash up pounded the _Quinn_.

"Look out!" roared Dan, "there's a boat here!"

It saved him; for a bell clanged in the engine-room, and the tug began to make sternway. It saved him for but a minute, though.

Thoughtless, selfish, and for once an utter fool, the exultant skipper of the _Three Sisters_ sought to gloat over his rival.

"On board the _Quinn_," yelled Barney. "Say, Jim Skelly, this is Barney Hodge talkin'. You didn't know he had friends in the rowboat business, did you?"

A curse rang from the Quinn's pilot-house, and Dan did not wait for anything else. Well he knew what would happen next, and he bent all his strength to his oars. He heard the jingle of a bell, and the tug started right for him.

"Look out!" yelled Dan, working the oars like a madman. But not a word came from the tug, moving silently, inexorably upon him like, some black, implacable monster.

Suddenly Dan cast aside his oars and dived over the side. The next instant the sharp, copper-bound nose of the tug struck the rowboat fairly amidships, grinding it against the steel side of the freighter, crushing it into matchwood.

A great numbness pa.s.sed over the man. He was dazed; and as wave after wave splashed over his head, he struggled dumbly to reach the ladder.

Then under the reaction from the icy shock, an electric thrill of energy and vitality pa.s.sed through his body.

He saw that he had been carried to about amidships, and the ladder was well toward the bow. With l.u.s.ty strokes he struck out along the steel sides, rising over the waves like a duck. Five minutes elapsed, and then with a sudden fear, Dan realized, in glancing at the bow, that he had not made ten feet in all that time and effort.

It was the current, which was ripping along the hull at the rate that would have affected the speed of a powerful steam launch. Dan had not noticed it before. He struggled desperately, but to no avail, and then he uttered his first cry for help. He could not see the deck, being so close to the hull; and for the same reason he could not have been seen had his cry been heard. Again he called for a.s.sistance, but there was no answer, no sound, save that of the water buffeting past the vessel.

He ceased to waste his strength in fruitless cries, devoting all that remained to his struggle to reach the ladder. But his strokes were weaker than before and he found he was being carried back upon the current instead of making headway against it. Fight as he would, he could feel that sliding, hopeless drag against which he was powerless to combat. His strength vanished ounce by ounce. His arms grew so numb with fatigue and cold that he could do nothing but move them up and down, dog fashion. On he went, down toward the stern of the vessel.

He was moving as swiftly as the current was, whirling, twisting like a piece of wood. His mind dulled. He longed for death now.

Instinctively he wished to get out of all the worry and struggle against dissolution. His one dominant idea was to throw up his hands and go down, down the deep descent. With a great cry of relief he yielded to the alluring thought. Up flew his arms above his head--and he felt so warm and cheerful! Something struck his outstretched hand and the fingers closed upon it. For a minute they gripped the swinging piece of rope. Then he opened his eyes to find he was hanging to a flimsy Jacob's ladder, suspended from the stern. With a new strength born of hope he flung up his feet, shooting them through the hempen rungs; and there he stayed for a while--it seemed almost an eternity.

Then laboriously climbing the ladder, he made the deck and there dropped as insensate as a log.