"Ready?" shouted Bigley, as I sat with my teeth chattering in the piercing wind.

I nodded, for I did not care to open my mouth to speak; and, in obedience to a sign, I held the water while he began to pull round as fast as he could and get the boat's head to the wind.

For a minute or so we were in very great danger, for as soon as we were broadside to the wind the waves seemed to leap up and the wind to strive to blow us over; but by sheer hard work Bigley got her head round, and then we pulled together, with the boat rising up one wave and plunging down another in a way that was quite startling.

Bob Chowne did not speak, only crouched down in the bottom of the boat and watched us as we tugged hard at the oars, under the impression that we were rowing in. But we soon knew to the contrary. We were only boys, the boat was a heavy one and stood well out of the water, and as we pulled the wind had tremendous power over our oars. In fact all we did was to keep the boat's head straight to the wind, and so diminished the violence of its power over us, while of course this was the best way to meet the waves that seemed to come directly off the sh.o.r.e.

"Come and pull now, Bob," I shouted after tugging at the oar for a long time. My feeling of chilliness had pa.s.sed away, and I was weary and breathless with my exertions.

I kept on pulling while Bob came to my side, and as he took the oar I gradually edged away and crept under it to go and take the place where he had crouched.

It was a black look-out for us; for it was already growing dim, and we knew that in half an hour it would be quite dark. The wind was still rising and the sea flecked with little patches of foam; while, as I looked towards the Gap, I could not help seeing with sinking heart that not only were the high rocks growing dim with the shades of the wintry night, but with the distance too.

You know how quickly the change comes on from day to night at the end of December. You can imagine, then, in the midst of that sudden storm, how anxiously I watched the sh.o.r.e, and tried to persuade myself that we were getting nearer when I knew that we were not.

If I had had any doubt about it, Bigley, who had been used to sea-going from a little child, put an end to it by suddenly shouting:

"It's of no good; we are only drifting out. I'm going to try and get under shelter of the cliff."

Then, shouting to Bob to ease a little, he pulled hard at the boat's head to get her a little to the west instead of due south, and then shouted to our companion again to pull with all his might.

Bob did pull--I could see that he did; but we did not get under the shelter of the cliff, for the change in the position of the boat presented more surface to the wind, and we could feel that we were drifting faster still.

We tried not to lose heart; but it was impossible to keep away a certain amount of despondency as we realised that all our pulling was in vain, and as we grew wearied out Bigley said that it was of no use to row.

All we were to do was to keep the boat's head well to the wind.

I crept after a time to Bigley's place in answer to a sign from him, for we had grown very silent; and as he resigned his oar to me and I went on pulling, while he crept aft to sit in the stern, it seemed as if it had all at once grown dark above us. The sh.o.r.e died away, all but one spot of light--a tiny spot that shone out like a star, one that we knew to be in the cottage where Mother Bonnet had no doubt a good hot cup of tea waiting for us, who were perishing with the cold and gradually drifting farther and farther away.

We could not talk for the wind. Besides, too, it was very hard work to talk and row in such a sea; so I sat and thought of how hard it was to be situated as we were, and to have again got into trouble in what was meant for a pleasant recreation.

I thought all this, and I believe my companions had very similar thoughts as we danced up and down on the short c.o.c.kling sea.

Then all at once, as the darkness overhead seemed to have grown more intense, and the sea with its foam to give the little light we enjoyed, we were aware of a fresh danger.

The wind and the hissing and beating of the sea made a great deal of noise, but that loud washing splash sounded louder to us, and so did the rattle of a tin pot which Bigley seized, and lifted the board from over the bit of a well and began to bale.

For one of the waves had struck the bows, risen up, and poured three or four gallons of water into the boat.

Bigley was ready for the emergency, though, directly, and we saw the rise and fall of the tin pan as he swept it up and down and sent the water flying on the wings of the wind.

Before he had baled the boat out the first time another wave swept in, and he had to work hard to clear that out; but he soon had that done after correcting our rowing, for I was pulling harder than Bob, and the consequence was that the boat was not quite head to wind and did not ride so easily as she should.

Darker and darker, with the faint star in the Gap quite gone now, and all around us the hissing waste of waters upon which our frail sh.e.l.l of a boat was tossed! It was so black now that we could hardly see each other's faces, and in a doleful silence we toiled on till all at once there was a sobbing cry from Bob Chowne, who fell forward over his oar.

Then the boat fell off and a wave came with a hissing rush over the bows.

"Back water, Sep!" yelled Bigley as he dragged Bob Chowne away, seized his oar, and began pulling, when the boat seemed to be eased again and rose and fell regularly; but a quant.i.ty of water kept rushing to and fro about poor Bob Chowne, who kept receiving it alternately in his back and face.

"Sit up and bale, Bob!" shouted Bigley. "Do you hear? Take the pannikin and bale."

Bob did not move, and Bigley shouted to him again.

"Take the pannikin and bale. Do you hear me? Take the pannikin and bale."

"I can't," moaned Bob. "I can't. Let me lie here and die."

Dark as it was I could just make out Bigley's actions, for I was in the fore part of the boat, and he before me.

"Bale, I say! Do you hear? Bale!" he shouted in his deep gruff voice.

"I can't," moaned Bob piteously.

"Then we shall sink--we shall go to the bottom."

"Yes; we're going to die," groaned Bob.

"No, we're not," cried Bigley in a fierce angry way that seemed different to anything I had before heard from him. "Get up and bale!"

"No, no," groaned Bob again.

"Get up and bale!" thundered Bigley, and I felt hot and angry against him, as I heard a dull thud, and it did not need Bob Chowne's cry of pain to tell me that Bigley had given him a kick on the ribs.

"Oh, Big!" I cried.

"Row!" he roared at me; and then to Bob: "Now, will you bale?"

"Yes," groaned Bob, struggling to his knees, and, holding on with one hand, he began to dip the baler in regularly and slowly, throwing out about a pint of water every time.

"Faster!" shouted Bigley; "faster, I say."

"Oh!" moaned poor Bob; but he obeyed, and it seemed a puzzle to me that our big companion, whom we bantered and teased, and led a sorry life at school, should somehow in this time of peril take the lead over us, and force us to behave in a way that could only have been expected of a crew obeying the captain of a boat.

I bent forward to Bigley as we kept on with the regular chop chop of the oars, making no effort to get nearer to the sh.o.r.e, only to keep the boat's head level, and I whispered in his ear:

"Shall we get to sh.o.r.e again!"

"Yes," he said confidently; "only you two must do what I tell you. I must be skipper now. Go on, you, Bob Chowne!" he roared. "Heave out that water. Do you want me to kick you again?"

Bob whimpered, but he worked faster, scooping the water clumsily out and throwing it over, the side, and, after he had done, and been sitting crouched at the bottom, Bigley seemed to attack him again unkindly, as if he were going to take advantage of his helplessness, and serve him out for many an old piece of tyranny.

"Now, then," he shouted--and it seemed to be his father speaking, not our quiet easy-going school-fellow, but the rough seafaring man who had the credit of being a smuggler--"Now then, you, Bob Chowne," he roared, "get up, and come and take Sep Duncan's oar."

"I can't," he groaned piteously, and he let himself fall against the side of the boat. "I'm so cold, I'm half dead."

"Oh, are you?" shouted Bigley. "No you ar'n't, so get up and creep over here."

"I can't," cried Bob again.

"Then I'll make you," cried Bigley fiercely, and lifting his oar out of the rowlocks he sent it along the gunwale, till he made it tap heavily against the back of Bob Chowne's head.