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Updated: May 22, 2025
When he came out on the tip of the Point the dinghy, he saw, lay safe where he had dragged it up on the rocks. And when he had satisfied himself of this he stood with hands thrust deep in his pockets, looking down on Poor Man's Rock, watching the swirl and foam as each swell ran over its sunken head. MacRae had a subconscious perception of beauty, beauty of form and color.
The fog was as dense as ever we moved in the very womb of night but I cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by the tow-rope, disappeared toward the Agatha, Pyecroft rowing. The bell began again on the starboard bow. "We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon. Mr. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes."
She scrambled aft, and unshipping the dinghy, came sculling towards me across the intervening water. She was wearing a white jersey, and with her arms bare and her hair shining in the sunlight, she made a picture that only a blind man would have failed to find inspiring. She brought up right against the bank where I was standing, and leaning over, caught hold of the grass. "Jump," she said.
The crew deserted their fire and took to the jungle, leaving a pile of smouldering ashes on the sand, and during the afternoon there was nothing to be seen of them. The dinghy was in plain sight, pulled up on the beach, just beyond where they had essayed their attempts at reducing ore by the "cooking" method.
When Lingard went to his boat to follow Carter, who had gone back to the yacht, Wasub, mast and sail on shoulder, preceded him down the ladder. The old man leaped in smartly and busied himself in getting the dinghy ready for his commander. In that little boat Lingard was accustomed to traverse the Shallows alone.
But when he saw MacRae stand in the dinghy alongside the Blanco and speak briefly to his men, then row in under Point Old behind Poor Man's Rock which the tide was slowly baring, when he climbed up over the Point and took the path along the cliff edge, that suspicious brightness in Gower's keen old eyes was replaced by a twinkle.
But the dinghy was real and so were the slippy slidy wet rocks, and I had to watch what I was about and not go staring in astonishment at our man. We all had to be careful about the rocks, and that's why none of us said anything till we were in the dinghy, except for one gasp of astonishment. "But how could you be?"
The man in the rowboat smiled. The air was very still. Sounds carry over quiet water as if telephoned. He could not help hearing what was said. "Wise management," he observed ironically, under his breath. The power yacht, it seemed, had not so much as a dinghy aboard. A figure on the deck detached itself from the group and waved a beckoning hand to the rowboat. The rower hesitated, frowning.
The dinghy came with a slight bump against the steamer's side; the pilot, grabbing for the rope ladder, had scrambled half-way up before I knew that our task of boarding was done; the harsh, muffled clanging of the engine-room telegraph struck my ear through the iron plate; my companion in the dinghy was urging me to "shove off push hard"; and when I bore against the smooth flank of the first English ship I ever touched in my life, I felt it already throbbing under my open palm.
A single glance showed him that their guest, together with all the supplies prepared for their journey, was no longer where he had left him. A second glance disclosed the dinghy half way to the beach, while in her stern, sculling her swiftly along with practised hand, stood the wooden-headed young savage who didn't know how to manage a boat.
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