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Like the picture of some forbidden thing was that glint of blue, framed by the green slopes and the sky above. He could see the whitecaps, the dancing glimmer of the sun, and the gray sea gulls that whirled and hovered and dipped before his longing gaze.
I was beaten and buffeted, smashed under by the great San Pablo whitecaps, and strangled by the hollow tide-rip waves which flung themselves into my eyes, nose, and mouth. Then the strange sucks would grip my legs and drag me under, to spout me up in some fierce boiling, where, even as I tried to catch my breath, a great whitecap would crash down upon my head.
She circled the segment of bay, climbed a low, rocky point, and found herself a seat on a fallen tree. Outside the lake heaved uneasily, still dotted with whitecaps whipped up by the southerly gale. At her feet surge after surge hammered the gravelly shore. Far through the woods behind her the wind whistled and hummed among swaying tops of giant fir and cedar.
I felt as if I were outside of all the world, and everything usual that could happen. The wind was freshening, picking up whitecaps on the bay, and presently I noticed that the lugger had shifted her position, had moved out a little from under the lea of the hill, and I saw they were running up sail on board. One large flapping white wing, and then another, rose and spread beyond the trees.
Again he saw a dark mass looming up, and rowed toward it hoping to find land, but again he was deceived, for it was another whirlpool which made the sea rise in gigantic waves. At last the wind subsided, and the sea became less rough, though the whitecaps still frothed around him. The fog lifted, and at a great distance he saw land, real land this time.
It was running north, a wide expanse of rolling waters from their feet to Blackwells Island in the east, all hurling swiftly like a billowing floor of gray. Here and there whitecaps spouted. On Blackwells Island loomed the gray hospitals and workhouses, and at intervals on the shore sparkled a friendly light. "But see the bridge," exclaimed Myra.
A strong southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in turn, pushes at the base of the waves and causes their wind-driven crests to fall forward and break into spray. The whole surface of the river is flecked with these whitecaps, a rare sight on an inland stream but characteristic of April.
Spume-spoutings leaped up three feet, or ten, or twenty and disappeared, and then there were others which spouted up one yard, or two, or ten. There were innumerable temporary whitecaps. The surface became pale from the constant churning of new foam-patches before the old foam died. Then, with absolute abruptness, the planes flew away from the one square mile of sea.
He stopped on the way to the wood-bordered shore and produced from a fence corner an electric lamp and two revolvers. "Stick one of these in your pocket. We're not going to add to our crimes if we can help it, but I owe somebody a shot for that nip in my cap." A stiff wind from the open lake was whipping up battalions of whitecaps that danced eerily in the starlight.
In consequence it held the boat bow on to the sea and wind the safest position in which to escape being swamped when the sea is breaking into whitecaps. "And now?" Maud asked cheerfully, when the task was accomplished and I pulled on my mittens. "And now we are no longer travelling toward Japan," I answered.
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