It is a narrow channel, and I never care about
going into it after dark until there is water enough for a craft
of our draught over the sands. It ain't night now, but it is well
nigh as dark. There is no making out the bearings of the land, and
we have got to trust to the perches the fishermen put up at the
bends of the channel. However, we have got to try it. Our anchors
would never hold here when the sea gets over the sands, and if they
did they would pull her head under water.
In half an hour a sea had got up that seemed to the boys tremendous.
Dark as it was they could see in various directions tracts of white
water where the waves broke wildly over the sands. The second anchor
had been let go some time before. The two cables were as taut as
iron bars, and the boat was pulling her bow under every sea. Joe
Chambers dropped a lead line overboard and watched it closely.
"We are dragging our anchors," he said. "There is nothing for it
but to run."
He went to the bow, fastened two logs of wood by long lines to
the cables outside the bow, so that he could find and recover the
anchors on his return, then a very small jib was hoisted, and as it
filled two blows with an axe severed the cables inboard. The logs
attached to them were thrown over, and the skipper ran aft and put
up the helm as the boat's head payed off before the wind.
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