Adventure Magazine Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 had been turned into stuff as immovable as the rocks that rose before them. The fisherman saw nothing of his look- out’s fear. The man on the foredeck, like the mast, and the eased-off mainsail, was nothing but an obstruction to his vigilant scrutiny of the seas ahead. He must keep all his attention for the gale, and the rocks, and the crippled pinion that might break and leave them drifting to destruction. In the yawl behind, Miller shrank from the rocks that seemed to converge from every quarter and eyed with mounting terror the water swashing about the cockpit. He drove his boat closer and closer to the Banner. It did not occur to him that his craft would not gain upon the fishing boat if she were not still seaworthy. Her heavi- ness seemed to presage sinking. Cool reason no longer swayed him; he was bent upon furrowing the same waters with his keel as had the Banner. There was safety there, and nowhere else. The black- ness of the big rock dead ahead grew until it seemed to overhang the Banner. Rob Trevellick gently eased off his sheet to sail just leeward of it, and as he did so, a furious gust, intensified and concentrated by the bulk of the island, struck the mainsail full. Rob let go his sheet in a hurry, and the twin cataracts on either side of the Banner’s bow died away as the boat lost headway. Miller, shooting along just behind, caught the gust too. He luffed to clear the slow- moving boat ahead and pass between it and the big rock. Here, he sensed, was the deep water channel that must be Rob’s goal. But his instinctive fear of the black granite rising beside him was too strong and he swung wildly away from the iron shore again. His bowsprit, like a stabbing lance, swept toward the Banner. It overrode the lower stern of the fishing boat. The pointed bow of the yawl lifted high in the air as her bob-stay ran up the counter of Trevel- lick’s boat. It hung there suspended, de- pressing dangerously the stern of the Banner. To Rob, intent ahead, the first intima- tion came when the bowsprit thrust by his shoulder. He started aside in time to avoid injury. Then, with a quick glance astern he sized up the new danger. Ducking under the bowsprit, he put the helm of the Banner hard over, and the nose of the boat swung into the wind. The yawl, still hanging by the wire bob- RICHARD HOWELLS WATKINS stay, swung about with the other craft, and both drifted helplessly downwind. Around them the white waters roared threateningly, and spray from the granite pinnacle to windward came drifting down upon them like a heavy rain. The Banner, though her stern was well down under the weight of the other boat’s bow, had suffered little hurt, though every charging wave threw a heavier splash of water into her cockpit. “Steady!” roared Rob encouragingly. He sprang upon the counter, gripped the bowsprit with both his hands and heaved upward with all his strength. The fishing boat’s stern settled almost imperceptibly in the water, but the amount of water coming inboard at every swell increased with dangerous rapidity. But the yawl’s bob- stay was slowly sliding backward; Rob was pushing her off steadily. Miller, dazed by this mishap, suddenly came back to himself. He threw a despair- ing glance at the welter of water a-lee, toward which both boats were drifting. Then he saw Rob straining to push the boats apart, and with a cry of fear rushed forward. “Don’t leave me!” he screamed, and ran out on the bowsprit with clutching hands. But the two boats were apart now, and Rob was already at his tiller again. The Banner’s head was paying off. The boom swung out, almost within reach of Miller’s hands. Desperately he launched himself at it. His gripping fingers failed to find a hold in the splintered end of the spar, and he plunged into a smother of foam. Rob tossed overboard the slack of the sheet. The rope fell fairly on Miller’s head, and he gripped it instinctively. “Hang to it, man!”’ the fisherman shouted, and leaving his boat to come in stays, he drew the struggling man nearer. An in- stant later, with a powerful heave, he brought Miller’s hands within grasping distance of the Banner’s stern. Gripping him by the wrists he heaved him aboard. Miller lay on the bottom, in the water sluicing about, and gasped for breath. He raised his head to stare at the yawl drifting rapidly astern. Silently Rob resumed his seat at the tiller, but his eyes blazed, first at the man in the bows; then at the man raising himself from the bottom. “A close call,” Miller panted, and coughed up seawater. COnmiclboooks.c© 5}