Dan Merrithew | Page 8

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 passed 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
offshore 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