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Had anybody heard and understood my need, I was beyond assistance from land, and there was nobody out in the harbor but myself, I felt sure. The Wavecrest had got well out into the harbor now. She rolled very little and therefore I knew that, unguided as she was, her head was right and wind and tide were sweeping her on.
My Wavecrest bore down upon the becalmed circle and suddenly I found the waves heaving smoothly under the sloop instead of breaking all about her. I ran to the canvas and stowed it quickly, then brought the sloop around into the lee of the huge bulk of the whale. I had a broken-shanked harpoon and a boathook.
Had I not been picked up as I was I might have been swamped in the Wavecrest. For a week, or more, we ran steadily toward the tropics, and in all that time we passed and that distantly but two steam vessels and only one sailing craft. There was no chance for me to get home. I had to possess my soul with such patience as I could, while the old Scarboro bore me swiftly away toward the Southern Seas.
And while thus engaged I made a discovery that to say the least startled me. Dragging over the bows of the Wavecrest was the cable by which she had been moored in Bolderhead Harbor. I had never chanced to draw it aboard. Now I did so. It was only a bit, some three or four feet long.
By noon she was provisioned and everything was ready for our cruise. Ben Gibson was let down into the cockpit of the Wavecrest on a mattress and was got comfortably into the cabin without any trouble. There was a steady breeze, but the sea was calm. The crew bade us godspeed and the skipper wrung my hand hard; but only said: "Do the best you can for him, Webb.
Often had I been soaked to the skin while on a fishing venture; but there was the prospect of a hot drink and a warm fire ahead of me. There was nothing in the line of comfort before me now. The sea remained untenanted and the Wavecrest drove on as though she were enchanted. Hour after hour dragged by. The sun did not appear; indeed, rain-gusts swept now and then across the sea.
I plunged these both into the carcass and then attached the Wavecrest, bows and stern, to these strange mooring-posts. There she was, as safe as though we were in a landlocked harbor, rising and falling with a motion by no means unpleasant. The exuding oil made a charmed circle about the sloop, into which the agencies of the gale could not venture.
She leaped like a horse struck with a whip and instantly began to roll and swing broadside to the gale. I knew at once what had happened. The cable had parted; the Wavecrest was adrift! The discovery alarmed me beyond all measure. I was panic-stricken I admit it. And I earnestly believe that almost any other person who had a love of life within them would have felt the same.
I could see little but the beacon, the night was so black; but I ran to the tiller and found that the sloop was under good steerage way and answered her helm nicely. Like all sloops, the Wavecrest was very broad of beam for her depth of keel, and the standing-room, or cockpit, was roomy. She was well rigged, too, having a staysail and gafftopsail.
I was a prisoner in my own boat and she was being swept out to sea as fast as a northwest gale and a heavy tide could carry her. I don't claim to possess an atom more courage than the next fellow. I was heartily scared the instant I realized that the Wavecrest was adrift and I was fastened into her cabin. But I was not made helpless by my terror.
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