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Updated: June 4, 2025
Blix looked as he indicated. The picture was a gorgeously colored lithograph of a pilot-boat, schooner-rigged, all sails set, dashing bravely through seas of emerald green color. "You mean that schooner?" asked Blix. "That schooner, exactly. Now, listen. You ask me in a loud voice what kind of a boat that is; and when I answer, you keep your eye on the two men." "Why, what are you going to do?"
The pilot-boat was not far off, nevertheless we should have swamped ere we could have reached her had not the captain, with admirable presence of mind, ordered me to lay in my oar, and at the same time handed me his hat, a large one and in tolerable good condition, and pointing to the water in which our legs were immersed, bade me "bale away!"
At length they came to Southampton where the pilot-boat brought him a telegram ordering him to report himself without delay. Three hours later he was in London. At the India Office, where he was kept waiting a while, he was shown into the room of a prominent and harassed official who had some papers in front of him. "You are Major Knight?" said the official.
The pilot-boat, having taken on board as many as it could hold, set sail for the floating light; the other boats then put off from the rock with the rest of the men, but they did not reach the Pharos until after a long and weary pull of three hours, during which the waves broke over the boats so frequently as to necessitate constant baling.
As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless, one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.
When the captain of the pilot-boat, who seemed much excited, finished his narrative, I quietly answered without hesitation, "I WILL GO WITH YOU." He grasped my hand, gave it a hearty shake, and said, "I thank you. You shall have no cause to regret your decision. Pack up your things, my lad, and be ready to go on board when I return."
A pilot-boat, running for shelter from the coming storm, flew by them like a frightened bird, passing the steamer as though the latter were standing still. Half an hour later the Dazzler sped beyond the last smoking sea and was sliding up and down on the long Pacific swell. The wind had increased its velocity and necessitated a reefing down of jib and mainsail.
"I am afraid so," said the Commander. "She looks to me like a pilot-boat. She was probably struck by a squall, with only a couple of hands left in her." "Lubberly work somehow, at all events," remarked Hanks. In another ten minutes we were close to the pilot-boat, and the cutter being hove-to, a boat was lowered, and Hanks and I were ordered to go in her and see what was the matter.
William Wilson stood as near the stern of the vessel as he could get; and unable to obtain the trumpet from the angry captain, made a tube of his own hands. "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save the life of the innocent."
That was in the era of sailing ships and infrequent steamers, and it was the period of the greatest mortality among the pilots; for staunch as their little boats were, and consummate as was their seamanship, they were not fitted for such long cruises. The marine underwriters in those days used to reckon on a loss of at least one pilot-boat annually.
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