“Cast off, Mr. Davy! Cast off! You’ll be swamped.”
The mate pulled away just as half a dozen frantic seamen leaped from the deck toward the boat. The swirl of the waters caught it, turning it round and round by the force. With a great effort he succeeded in sending it out of the eddy just in time to avoid being drawn under by the drowning seamen. Again making a strenuous effort to get beyond their reach he sent the dingey scudding to westward, was caught by a current, and carried further away from the vessel.
“What is it?” asked Peggy as she caught a glimpse of his whitening face.
“God help them,” broke from him. “We are caught in the current and can’t get back to the ‘Falcon.’”
[Illustration: THE DINGEY WAS CAUGHT BY A CURRENT]
“Safe through the war her course the vessel steers, The haven gained, the pilot drops his fears.”
“We must,” burst from Peggy, springing up wildly. “Oh, friend, can’t thee do something? We must not leave them.”
“Sit still,” commanded the mate sharply. “Why, look you! We can’t even see the ‘Falcon’ for the fog.”
It was true. Already the hapless “Falcon” had been swallowed up by the dense veil of vapor. It was as if the doomed vessel had been cut off from all the open sea, and its fate hidden in the clinging curtain of black obscurity.
The girl uttered a low cry, and sank back to her place in the sheets covering her face with her hands. Colonel Owen and Harriet had been unkind. They had been selfish almost to cruelty in their treatment of her, but in this hour of what she believed to be certain death to them she forgot everything but that they were kinspeople.
The sea was running very high. Now that they were so near its surface they felt its full power. It had appeared stupendous when they were on the deck of the schooner, but now the great billows hurled them up and down, and tossed and buffeted them as though the boat was a plaything. Vainly the mate tried to steady it with the oars.
A long time Peggy sat so absorbed in grief for her cousins that she was oblivious to the peril of the situation. At length, however, she looked up, and the dreadful isolation and danger of the position appalled her. Only that little boat between them and the great Atlantic.