Cormorant Crag | Page 9

brown tanned canvas filling at once, and sending the boat gliding gently along over the rocks which showed clearly deep down through the crystal sea.
"Soon know how to manage a boat yourselves," said the old man grimly, as he thrust an oar over the stern and used it to steer.
"Manage a boat ourselves!" cried Mike. "I should think we could--eh, Vince?"
"Should think you could!" said the old man laughing. "Ah! you think you could, but you can't. Why, I hardly know how yet, after trying for fifty year. Wants some larning, boys, when tide's low, and the rocks are bobbing up and down ready to make holes in the bottom. Don't you two be too sure, and don't you never go along here far without me."
The boys said nothing; but they felt the truth of the man's words as he steered them in and out among the jagged masses of granite, around which the glassy currents glided, now covering them from sight, now leaving bare their weed-hung, broken-out fangs; while on their left, as they steered north toward a huge projection, which ran right out on the far side of a little bay, the perpendicular cliffs rose up grey and grand, defended by buttresses formed by masses that had fallen, and pierced every here and there by caverns, into which the water ran and rushed with strange, hollow, whispering noises and slaps and gurglings, as if there were peculiar creatures far up in the darkness resenting being disturbed.
Every now and then the sea, as it heaved and sank, laid bare some rounded mass covered with long, hanging sea-weed, which parted on the top and hung down on either side, giving the stone the appearance of some strange, long-haired sea monster, which had just thrust its head above the surface to gaze at the boat, and once this was so near that Mike shrank from it as it peered over the thwart, the boat almost grating against the side.
"Wasn't that too close?" said Vince quickly.
"Nay," said the old man quietly: "if you didn't go close to that rock, you'd go on the sharp rock to starboard. There's only just room to pass."
A minute later, as the two lads, were gazing in at the gloomy portals of a water-floored cave, in and out of which birds were flying, a dexterous turn of the oar sent the boat quickly round, head to wind, the sail flapped over their heads, and Vince seized the boat-hook without being told, and, reaching over the side, hooked towards him a couple of good-sized pieces of blackened cork, through which a rope had been passed and knotted to prevent its return.
This rope Mike seized, hauled upon it, drawing the boat along, till it was right over something heavy, which, on being dragged to the surface, proved to be a great beehive-shaped, cage-like basket, weighted with stones, and provided with a funnel-like entrance at the top.
"Nothing!" cried Mike; and the lobster-pot was allowed to sink back into the deep water among the rocks as soon as it had been examined to see if it contained bait.
Then there was another short run, and a fresh examination of one of these trap-like creels, with better success; for a good-sized lobster was found to be inside, and, after two or three attempts, Vince seized it across the back, and drew it out as it flicked its tail sharply, and vainly sought to take hold of its aggressor with its formidable, pincer-armed claws.
Old Daygo hooked the lobster towards him with the toe of his boot, clapped it between his knees, and cleverly tied its claws with pieces of spun yarn before dropping the captive into a locker in the stern, half full of water, which was admitted through holes in the side.
A couple more lobster-pots were tried, without success, as the boat glided along by the side of the great granite cliffs, where the many black cormorants, which made the shelves and points their home, gave ample reason for the solitary island, far out among the rushing waters of the fierce currents, to be named Cormorant Crag by all who sailed that way, and avoided as the most dangerous rock-bound place off the coast.
Then came a change, the boat being steered to a channel which ran between a mighty mass of piled-up granite and the cliffs. This gap was about forty yards wide, and the pent-up waters rushed through, eddying and rippling, and taking the boat along at a rapid rate. But Daygo steered close enough in to enable him to throw the little grapnel in the bottom of the boat on to the rocks nearest the cliffs. The iron caught at once, the line was checked and fastened, and the boat, swung now in the swift race close to a little keg,