The Boats of the Glen Carrig Read Online Free PDF Page B

heard them hallooing, and the trees had become
like live things, and there was a vast growling in the air, and
hideous trumpetings. Then I caught the bo'sun again by the arm, and
shouted to him that we must run for our lives; and this we did,
smiting with our swords as we ran; for there came things at us, out
from the growing dusk.
    Thus we made the brig, and, the boats being ready, I scrambled after the
bo'sun into his, and we put straightway into the creek, all of us,
pulling with so much haste as our loads would allow. As we went I looked
back at the brig, and it seemed to me that a multitude of things hung
over the bank above her, and there seemed a flicker of things moving
hither and thither aboard of her. And then we were in the great creek up
which we had come, and so, in a little, it was night.
    All that night we rowed, keeping very strictly to the center of the big
creek, and all about us bellowed the vast growling, being more fearsome
than ever I had heard it, until it seemed to me that we had waked all
that land of terror to a knowledge of our presence. But, when the morning
came, so good a speed had we made, what with our fear, and the current
being with us, that we were nigh upon the open sea; whereat each one of
us raised a shout, feeling like freed prisoners.
    And so, full of thankfulness to the Almighty, we rowed outward to the
sea.

V - The Great Storm
*
    Now, as I have said, we came at last in safety to the open sea, and
so for a time had some degree of peace; though it was long ere we
threw off all of the terror which the Land of Lonesomeness had cast
over our hearts.
    And one more matter there is regarding that land, which my memory
recalls. It will be remembered that George found certain wrappers upon
which there was writing. Now, in the haste of our leaving, he had given
no thought to take them with him; yet a portion of one he found within
the side pocket of his jacket, and it ran somewhat thus:—
    "But I hear my lover's voice wailing in the night, and I go to find him;
for my loneliness is not to be borne. May God have mercy upon me!"
    And that was all.
    For a day and a night we stood out from the land towards the North,
having a steady breeze to which we set our lug sails, and so made very
good way, the sea being quiet, though with a slow, lumbering swell from
the Southward.
    It was on the morning of the second day of our escape that we met with
the beginnings of our adventure into the Silent Sea, the which I am about
to make as clear as I am able.
    The night had been quiet, and the breeze steady until near on to the
dawn, when the wind slacked away to nothing, and we lay there waiting,
perchance the sun should bring the breeze with it. And this it did; but
no such wind as we did desire; for when the morning came upon us, we
discovered all that part of the sky to be full of a fiery redness, which
presently spread away down to the South, so that an entire quarter of the
heavens was, as it seemed to us, a mighty arc of blood-colored fire.
    Now, at the sight of these omens, the bo'sun gave orders to prepare the
boats for the storm which we had reason to expect, looking for it in the
South, for it was from that direction that the swell came rolling upon
us. With this intent, we roused out so much heavy canvas as the boats
contained, for we had gotten a bolt and a half from the hulk in the
creek; also the boat covers which we could lash down to the brass studs
under the gunnels of the boats. Then, in each boat, we mounted the
whaleback—which had been stowed along the tops of the thwarts—also its
supports, lashing the same to the thwarts below the knees. Then we laid
two lengths of the stout canvas the full length of the boat over the
whaleback, overlapping and nailing them to the same, so that they sloped
away down over the gunnels upon each side as though they had formed a
roof to us. Here, whilst some stretched the canvas, nailing its lower
edges to the gunnels, others were employed in lashing