CHAPTER IX
_In Which Attack is Threatened and Billy Topsail Strips Stark Naked in the Wind in Pursuit of a Desperate Expedient and with Small Chance of Success_
Teddy Brisk kept watch for a skiff from Our Harbour or Come-Again Bight.He depended for the inspiration of this rescue on his mother's anxiouslove and sagacity. She would leave nothing to the indifferent dealingsand cold issue of chance; it was never "more by good luck than goodconduct" with her, ecod!
"I knows my mother's ways!" he sobbed, and he repeated this many timesas the gray day drew on and began to fail. "I tells you, Billy, I knowsmy mother's ways!"
And they were not yet beyond sight of the coast. Scotchman's Breakfastof Ginger Head was a wee white peak against the drab of the sky in thesouthwest; and the ragged line of cliffs running south and east was along, thin ridge on the horizon where the cottages of Walk Harbour andOur Harbour were.
No sail fluttered between--a sail might be confused with the colour ofthe ice, however, or not yet risen into view; but by and by, when themisty white circle of the sun was dropping low, the boy gave up hope,without yielding altogether to despair. There would be no skiff alongthat day, said he; but there would surely be a sail to-morrow, neverfear--Skipper Thomas and a Tight Cove crew.
In the light airs the floe had spread. There was more open water thanthere had been. Fragments of ice had broken from the first vast pansinto which Schooner Bay ice had been split in the break-up. Theselesser, lighter pans moved faster than the greater ones; and the windfrom the north--blown up to a steady breeze by this time--was drivingthem slowly south against the windward edge of the more sluggish fieldsin that direction.
At sunset--the west was white and frosty--a small pan caught BillyTopsail's eye and instantly absorbed his attention. It had broken fromthe field on which they were marooned and was under way on a diagonalacross a quiet lane of black water, towards a second great field lyingfifty fathoms or somewhat less to the south.
Were Billy Topsail and the boy aboard that pan the wind would ferry themaway from the horrible menace of the dogs. It was a small pan--an areaof about four hundred square feet; yet it would serve. It was not morethan fifteen fathoms distant. Billy could swim that far--he was prettysure he could swim that far, the endeavour being unencumbered; but theboy--a little fellow and a cripple--could not swim at all.
Billy jumped up.
"We've got t' leave this pan," said he, "an' forthwith too."
"Have you a notion, b'y?"
Billy laid off his seal-hide overjacket. He gathered up the dogs'traces--long strips of seal leather by means of which the dogs had drawnthe komatik, a strip to a dog; and he began to knot themtogether--talking fast the while to distract the boy from the incidentof peculiar peril in the plan.
The little pan in the lane--said he--would be a clever ferry. He wouldswim out and crawl aboard. It would be no trick at all. He would carryone end of the seal-leather line. Teddy Brisk would retain the other.Billy pointed out a ridge of ice against which Teddy Brisk could bracehis sound leg. They would pull, then--each against the other; andpresently the little pan would approach and lie alongside the bigpan--there was none too much wind for that--and they would board thelittle pan and push off, and drift away with the wind, and leave thedogs to make the best of a bad job.
It would be a slow affair, though--hauling in a pan like that; the lightwas failing too--flickering out like a candle end--and there must becourage and haste--or failure.
Teddy Brisk at once discovered the interval of danger to himself.
"I'll be left alone with the dogs!" he objected.
"Sure, b'y," Billy coaxed; "but then you see----"
"I won't stay alone!" the boy sobbed. He shrank from the direction ofthe dogs towards Billy. At once the dogs attended. "I'm afeared t' stayalone!" he screamed. "No, no!"
"An we don't leave this pan," Billy scolded, "we'll be gobbled up in thenight."
That was not the immediate danger. What confronted the boy was animmediate attack, which he must deal with alone.
"No! No! No!" the boy persisted.
"Ah, come now----"
"That Cracker knows I'm a cripple, Billy. He'll turn at me. I can't keepun off."
Billy changed front.
"Who's skipper here?" he demanded.
"You is, sir."
"Is you takin' orders or isn't you?"
The effect of this was immediate. The boy stopped his clamour.
"I is, sir," said he.
"Then stand by!"
"Aye, sir!"--a sob and a sigh.
* * * * *
It was to be bitter cold work in the wind and water. Billy Topsailcompleted his preparations before he began to strip. He lashed the endof the seal-leather line round the boy's waist and put the club in hishand.
All this while he gave directions: The boy was to face the dogs; he wasnot to turn round for hints of Billy's progress or to be concerned atall with that; he was not to lose courage; he was to feint and scold;he was to let no shadow of fear cross his face--no tremor of fear musttouch his voice; he was not to yield an inch; he was not to sob andcover his eyes with his hands--in short, he was to mind his own task ofkeeping the dogs away and leave Billy to accomplish his.
And the boy answered: "Yes, sir!" and "Aye, sir!" and "Very well,sir!"--like an old hand of the coast.
It was stimulating. Billy Topsail was heartened. He determined privatelythat he would not turn to look back--that if the worst came to theworst, and he could manage to do so, he would jerk the lad into thewater and let him drown. The snarling tumult of the onset would warn himwhen the worst had come to the worst.
And then he stripped stark naked, quickly stowed away his clothes in themidst of the boy's dogskin robes, tied the end of the seal-leather lineround his waist, and ran to the edge of the pan.
"If you drowns--" the boy began.
"Keep them dogs off!" Billy Topsail roared. "I'll not drown!"
He slipped into the water and struck out.
Billy Topsail, M.D.: A Tale of Adventure With Doctor Luke of the Labrador Page 11