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As the oars were about to be shipped, one of the crew stumbled, and struck his head so violently against the bollard, that he fell stunned into the bottom of the boat. Guy saw the accident as he stood on the edge of the pier. A sudden impulse seized him. At one bound he passed from the pier to the boat, which was already some half-dozen feet away, and took the seat and oar of the injured man.
Bax, being ignorant on this point, had given up all hope. He clung to the bollard, close beside the coxswain. "It's all over with us at last," he said, as the boat struck heavily, and was then lifted away on the crest of a roaring breaker. "It may be so," replied the coxswain, calmly; "but if we escape being dashed on the wrecks that are scattered over the Sands, we may live it out yet."
With your leave, sir, I'll go and see if she is all safe." Saying this, Bollard started up, Paul Lizard following him. In a short time they were heard shouting, and all the party hurried down to join them, Peter Patch, very unwilling to be roused, bringing up the rear, wrapped, to keep himself warm, in the flag which he had appropriated. They were not a moment too soon.
Tom, now at rest, sitting on a pierhead bollard, sees the world leaving him, going ahead past his cogitating tobacco smoke. Let it go. We, watching quietly from our place on the pier-head, are wiser than the moving world in one respect. We know it does not know whence it is moving, nor why. Well, perhaps its presiding god, who is determined the world shall go round, would be foolish to tell us.
"Thank you, Dicey," he whispered, opening his eyes. "I thought it was all up with me." "You will be soon to rights, Mr Patch," said Bollard, looking kindly at him. "He would not touch a drop of water himself," he added, turning to the doctor, "but gave his share to those two little children crying out for it."
Even here the landing was far from easy. While some of the men kept the boat from being dashed against the rocks, Harry, with the boatswain and the rest, leaped into the water. "Come, marm," said Mr Bollard to Mrs Clagget. "You were the first in the boat, and you should be the first out, and do just cling on to my back, and I will soon place you on dry ground."
The entire length of rope unwound directly from the reel or 'bollard' of the first launch, and the line of a second boat was attached forthwith; a third and a fourth were annexed, but the whale exhibited no sign of exhaustion, and dragged his pursuers like the wind. A fifth and a sixth line spun out. The captain's cheek grew pale, and he opened his clasp-knife with a curse upon his lips.
Nicky-Nan slewed himself about on the bollard, and encountered the genial gaze of Mr Latter, the landlord. Mr Latter, a retired Petty Officer of the Navy, stood six feet two inches in his socks, and carried a stomach which incommoded even that unusual stature.
"Oh, you will let me into the water, I know you will," answered Mrs Clagget. "No, no, marm, don't be afraid," said Bollard, seizing her hands, and lifting her up on his shoulders as he would have carried his hammock. "You must set the rest of the ladies an example."
"We are truly glad to see you, Bollard," said Harry, "for we believed that you had been overwhelmed by the iceberg." "So we should have been, sir," was the answer, "but the moment we saw the top of the berg beginning to move we shoved off, and pulled away to the westward. We were not a moment too soon, however; for a mass of ice rose right up out of the water, directly astern of us.
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