"I am afraid none of us could live to reach the fort."
"It would be a risky path, Mabel, and a crooked one; though some of your sex have undergone even more than that in this wilderness.
But, Jasper, either you or I, or both of us, must man this bark canoe; Mabel's only chance will lie in getting through the breakers in that."
"I would willingly man anything to save Mabel," answered Jasper, with a melancholy smile; "but no human hand, Pathfinder, could carry that canoe through yonder breakers in a gale like this.
I have hopes from anchoring, after all; for once before have we saved the Scud in an extremity nearly as great as this."
"If we are to anchor, Jasper," the Sergeant inquired, "why not do it at once?
Every foot we lose in drifting now would come into the distance we shall probably drag when the anchors are let go."
Jasper drew nearer to the Sergeant, and took his hand, pressing it earnestly, and in a way to denote strong, almost uncontrollable feelings.
"Sergeant Dunham," said he solemnly, "you are a good man, though you have treated me harshly in this business.
You love your daughter?"
"That you canuot doubt, Eau-douce," returned the Sergeant huskily.
"Will you give her -- give us all -- the only chance for life that is left?"
"What would you have me do, boy, what would you have me do?
I have acted according to my judgment hitherto, - what would you have me do?"
"Support me against Master Cap for five minutes, and all that man can do towards saving the Scud shall be done."
The Sergeant hesitated, for he was too much of a disciplinarian to fly in the face of regular orders. He disliked the appearance of vacillation, too; and then he had a profound respect for his kinsman's seamanship.
While he was deliberating, Cap came from the post he had some time occupied, which was at the side of the man at the helm, and drew nigh the group.
"Master Eau-douce," said he, as soon as near enough to be heard, "I have come to inquire if you know any spot near by where this cutter can be beached?
The moment has arrived when we are driven to this hard alternative."
That instant of indecision on the part of Cap secured the triumph of Jasper.
Looking at the Sergeant, the young man received a nod that assured him of all he asked, and he lost not one of those moments that were getting to be so very precious.
"Shall I take the helm," he inquired of Cap, "and see if we can reach a creek that lies to leeward?"
"Do so, do so," said the other, hemming to clear his throat; for he felt oppressed by a responsibility that weighed all the heavier on his shoulders on account of his ignorance.
"Do so, Eau-douce, since, to be frank with you, I can see nothing better to be done.
We must beach or swamp."
Jasper required no more; springing aft, he soon had the tiller in his own hands.
The pilot was prepared for what was to follow; and, at a sign from his young commander, the rag of sail that had so long been set was taken in. At that moment, Jasper, watching his time, put the helm up; the head of a staysail was loosened forward, and the light cutter, as if conscious she was now under the control of familiar hands, fell off, and was soon in the trough of the sea.
This perilous instant was passed in safety, and at the next moment the little vessel appeared flying down toward the breakers at a rate that threatened instant destruction.
The distances had become so short, that five or six minutes sufficed for all that Jasper wished, and he put the helm down again, when the bows of the Scud came up to the wind, notwithstanding the turbulence of the waters, as gracefully as the duck varies its line of direction on the glassy pond.
A sign from Jasper set all in motion on the forecastle, and a kedge was thrown from each bow.
The fearful nature of the drift was now apparent even to Mabel's eyes, for the two hawsers ran out like tow-lines.
As soon as they straightened to a slight strain, both anchors were let go, and cable was given to each, nearly to the better-ends.
It was not a difficult task to snub so light a craft with ground-tackle of a quality better than common; and in less than ten minutes from the moment when Jasper went to the helm, the Scud was riding, head to sea, with the two cables stretched ahead in lines that resembled bars of iron.
"This is not well done, Master Jasper!" angrily exclaimed Cap, as soon as he perceived the trick which had been played him; "this is not well done, sir.
I order you to cut, and to beach the cutter without a moment's delay."
No one, however, seemed disposed to comply with this order; for so long as Eau-douce saw fit to command, his own people were disposed to obey.
Finding that the men remained passive, Cap, who believed they were in the utmost peril, turned fiercely to Jasper, and renewed his remonstrances.
"You did not head for your pretended creek," added he, after dealing in some objurgatory remarks that we do not deem it necessary to record, "but steered for that bluff, where every soul on board would have been drowned, had we gone ashore."
"And you wish to cut, and put every soul ashore at that very spot!" Jasper retorted, a little drily.
"Throw a lead-line overboard, and ascertain the drift!" Cap now roared to the people forward.
A sign from Jasper sustaining this order, it was instantly obeyed.
All on deck watched, with nearly breathless interest, the result of the experiment.
The lead was no sooner on the bottom, than the line tended forward, and in about two minutes it was seen that the cutter had drifted her length dead in towards the bluff.
Jasper looked gravely, for he well knew nothing would hold the vessel did she get within the vortex of the breakers, the first line of which was appearing and disappearing about a cable's length directly under their stern.
"Traitor!" exclaimed Cap, shaking a finger at the young commander, though passion choked the rest.
"You must answer for this with your life!" he added after a short pause.
"If I were at the head of this expedition, Sergeant, I would hang him at the end of the main-boom, lest he escape drowning."
"Moderate your feelings, brother; be more moderate, I bcseech you; Jasper appears to have done all for the best, and matters may not be so bad as you believe them."
"Why did he not run for the creek he mentioned? -- why has he brought us here, dead to windward of that bluff, and to a spot where even the breakers are only of half the ordinary width, as if in a hurry to drown all on board?"
"I headed for the bluff, for the precise reason that the breakers are so narrow at this spot," answered Jasper mildly, though his gorge had risen at the language the other held.