Part 47 (1/2)

able to hold the fish. That'll save us fishermen a pile o' labor.”

But the official was not to be tempted into talk, even on the question of his own invention. He simply nodded, and went on pursing in.

Presently the _s.h.i.+ner_ came pelting down the breeze, still carrying quite a bit of canvas, there being not enough hands on board to reef.

The weather was getting dirtier every minute.

”h.e.l.lo there the boat!” hailed the captain.

”All right,” the seine-master called back. ”A couple o' hundred barrels.”

”Net holding?”

”Looks like it.”

”Better get on board soon's you can,” the captain advised; ”we may have a bit of a blow.”

Colin thought to himself that there was a great deal more than a ”bit of a blow” at the time, but he said nothing. The worst of it was the way the rain came pelting down, for it was as thick as a fog, and dispiriting. It was a cold rain, too, and although it was September, the northeast gale was chill. Colin s.h.i.+vered in his oilskins. The pursing in done, the seine-master waved a torch, but it could not be seen in the rain.

”It's a good thing we've got a cap'n like Jerry on board, boys,” said the seine-master. ”He'll have to smell us out, because he can't see anythin'.”

But it was a longer wait than any one expected, for the schooner had faded into the rain and could not be seen. Suddenly a hail was heard, and the _s.h.i.+ner_ pa.s.sed to leeward of the boats, dimly visible. Every one shouted, and an answering cry came back.

”He'll beat up to wind'ard a bit an' then pick us up,” said the seine-master cheerfully.

Colin wondered how any man could run a schooner about in a gale of wind and come back to a certain spot, but he need not have been incredulous, for in about five minutes' time the _s.h.i.+ner_ came sliding down as though to run over the boats, being thrown up into the wind in the nick of time. As the schooner settled beside the boat, all the men but two streamed aboard her, one remaining at the bow, to shackle the seine-boat to the iron that hung from the hook at the fore-rigging on the port side, while the other, grabbing hold of the long steering-oar, did his best to fend off the stern. The seine, thus being between the boat and the schooner, was held by Roote and the seine-master. Colin climbed aboard with the rest of the men, and within two minutes' time, the big dip-net--which would hold a barrel at a time--was scooped in among the fish.

Ten or eleven times the dip-net had descended and come up full of fish, and the work was proceeding rapidly in spite of the pitching and heaving of the vessel, when suddenly every one was stopped by the long wail of a foghorn near by. Not a sound of one had been heard before, and all hands were so busy that the direction from which the sound came had not been noted. Exactly half a minute elapsed.

Then mournfully and very close, the long ”Who-o-o-o” sounded almost upon them, and the captain sprang to the wheel. As he set a hand upon the spokes and spun them round, a tall gray s.h.i.+p towered above them from the side on which was the seine-boat, and seemed to hang poised a moment on the crest of a sea before the final crash. Colin, who was leaning over the rail watching the dipping of the net, was able to see everything.

The fisherman at the bow of the seine-boat jumped for the boom and clasped it safely. Then, as the sailing vessel lurched upon them, the boy noted that the seine-master and the fisherman at the stern of the seine-boat leaped for the martingale shrouds and held them.

But that instant's delay, as the bark had seemed to be poised upon the wave, had been enough for the _s.h.i.+ner_. Having her canvas up, the fraction of time gave her the chance to answer to her helm, and she spun round like a teetotum, seeming almost to wriggle from under the bow of the s.h.i.+p like a live creature. Roote, the only one left in the seine-boat, had been the last to see the oncoming s.h.i.+p. He gave one quick look upward, and plunged from the seine-boat into the sea. Even so, the chances were in his favor, but as he touched the water the s.h.i.+p crashed into the seine-boat, and a piece of the wreckage hit him on the head.