"If I could not, it is certainly easy to learn, since every other schoolboy can do it and every custom house subordinate, therefore I need not be ashamed that I cannot, only sail carefully now as I would not willingly have my gloves spoiled and get wet."
It was an order, and the surveyor, who was cock of the walk at the East Skerries, felt himself degraded. After a movement on the tiller the sail filled and the boat sped onward steadily towards the rock, with its white custom house cottage brightly shining in the rays of the setting sun.
The seaboard was vanishing, there was a feeling that all kindly protection was left behind, when venturing out on the open boundless water, with darkness threatening toward the east. There was no prospect of crawling to leeward of islands or rocks, no possibility in case of storm to lay up to and reef, out right into the middle of destruction, over the black gulf, out to that little rock that looks no larger than a buoy cast into the middle of the sea. The fish commissioner, as signified before, held fast to his only life and was intelligent enough to count his insignificant resistance against nature's superiority. Now he felt depressed. He was too clear-sighted with his thirty-six years to overestimate the insight and daring of the man at the tiller. He did not look with reliance at his brown and whiskered visage, nor would he believe that a muscular arm was equal to a wind which blew with thousands of pounds pressure against a rocking sail. He viewed such courage as founded upon faulty judgment. What stupidity, thought he, to risk one's life in a little open boat when there exist deckers and steamers. What incredible folly to hoist such a big sail on a spruce mast, which bends like a bow when a strong wind strikes it. The lee-shroud was hanging slack, likewise the forestay, and the whole wind pressure was lying on the windward-shroud, which seemed rotten. Trust to such an uncertain residue as a few flax ropes more or less cohesive, he would not, and therefore he turned with the next gust of wind to the subordinate who was sitting close to the halyard, and in a short penetrating voice commanded, "Let the sail run!"
The two Inferiors looked toward the stern, awaiting the helmsman's orders, but the fish commissioner repeated his command instantly and with such emphasis that the sail sank.
The surveyor in the stern shrieked.
"Who the Devil commands the maneuvering of my boat?"
"I," answered the commissioner.
Whereupon he turned to the subordinates with the order.
"Put out the oars!"
The oars were put out and the boat gave a few rolls, for the surveyor had left the tiller angrily at the command, exclaiming,
"Yes, then he can take the helm himself!"
The commissioner at once took his place in the stern and the tiller was under his arm before the surveyor had ceased swearing.
The glacé-glove cracked instantly at the thumb, but the boat made even speed while the surveyor sat with laughter in his whiskers, and one oar ready to push out to give course to the boat. The commissioner had no attention to bestow upon the doubting seaman, but stared attentively windward and could soon discern a heaving sea with its swell many meters long, from the surge with its short water fall, then after a hasty glance astern he measured the leeway, and in the wake noted the setting of the currents, it was perfectly clear what course must be held not to drift past the East Skerries.
The surveyor, who had searched long to meet the black burning glances that they might mark his laughter, became tired, for it looked as though they would have no contact with anything that could soil or disturb them. After a moment's beseeching the surveyor becoming absent and dejected began to observe the maneuvering.
The sun had reached the horizon, the waves were breaking purple black at the base, deep green at the side, and where the crests rose highest they lighted up grass green. The foam sprouted and hissed red champagne colored in the sun. The boat and men were now low down in the dusk, or the next moment, on the crest of a wave, the four faces glowed and instantly faded away.
Not every wave broke so high, some were only rocking slowly and cradling the boat, lifting and sucking it forward. It seemed as though the little man at the tiller could from a distance judge when a gigantic wave would come, and with a slight push at the tiller held firm or sneaked between the dreadful green walls, which threatened to spring and form an arch over the boat.
The fact was that the danger had really increased through the sail being furled, for the driving power had diminished and the sail's lifting ability must be dispensed with, therefore the surveyor's astonishment at the incredible fine maneuvering began to change to admiration.
He looked at the changing expression on the pale face and the movement in the black eyes, and felt that inside there was a combined calculation. Then not to seem superfluous himself he put out his oar, for he felt the time had come, and acknowledged willingly the superiority before it was wrung from him, thus:
"Oh, he has been at sea before!"
The fish commissioner, who was deeply occupied, and would have no intercourse whatever, as he was afraid of being surprised and deceived in a moment's weakness by the apparent external superiority of the giant, made no response.
His right glove had cracked round the thumb, and the bracelet had fallen over the hand. When the flame faded from the crest of the waves and the day closed, he took out with his left hand a lorgnette and placed it in his right eye, moving his head quickly to several points of the compass as though he would sight land, where no land was to be seen, and then threw this brief question forward.
"Have you no lighthouse on the East Skerries?"
"God knows we have not," answered the surveyor.
"Have we any shoals?"
"Deep water."
"Shall we sight Landsort or Sandham's lighthouse?"
"Not much of Sandham but more to Landsort," replied the surveyor.
"Sit still at your places and we shall come out all right," finished the commissioner, who seemed to have taken a bearing by the heads of the three men and some unknown firm point in the distance.
The clouds had flocked together and the May dusk had given place to obscurity. It was like a swing forwards into some thin impenetrable material, without light. The sea was rising only as darker shadows against the shadowy sky, the heads of the waves struck the bottom of the boat and lifting it up on their backs dived down on the other side and rolled out. But now to separate friend from foe was difficult and the calculation more uncertain. Two oars were out to leeward and one to windward, which if applied with more or less power at the right moment would keep the boat buoyant.
The commissioner, who soon could not see more than the two lighthouses in north and south, must now compensate the loss of sight by the ear and before he could become used to the sea's roaring, sighing, hissing and spouting, or distinguish between a dashing or a surging wave, the water had already come into the boat, so that to save his fine shoes he placed his feet on a thwart.
Soon he had studied the harmony of the waves, and could even hear from the regular beating of the swell the danger approaching, and feel on the right ear-drum when the wind pressed the harder and threatened to toss the water higher. It was as though he had improvised nautical and meteorological instruments out of his susceptible senses from which the conductors connected with his big brain battery, hidden by that little ridiculous hat and the black bang.
The men who at the moment of the water's intrusion muttered rebellious words, became silenced when they felt how the boat shot forward, and at each word of command, windward, or leeward, they knew which way to pull.
The commissioner had taken his bearings on the two lighthouses and used the lorgnette quadrangle glass as a distance measure, but the difficulty of holding the course was that no light could be seen from the windows of the cottages since they were in the lee of the hillock. When the dangerous voyage had been continued an hour or more, a dark rise was observed forward against the horizon. The helmsman, who would not, to gain doubtful advice, disturb his own intuitions on which he relied