Chapter XII

There was yet another "gathering" of human beings on the wind-swept surface of the Atlantic, that evening, to whose minds it had come with no small degree of anxiety. Not, perhaps, as great as that of the three families over there on the shore of the bay, or even of the boys, tossing along in their bubble of a yacht; but the officers, and not a few of the passengers and crew, of the great, iron-builded ocean steamer, were anything but easy in their minds.

Had they no pilot on board? To be sure they had, but they had, somehow, seemed to bring that fog along with them, and the captain had a half-defined suspicion that neither he nor the pilot knew exactly where they were. That is a bad condition for a great ship to be in, and that, too, so near a coast which requires good seamanship and skillful pilotage in the best of weather. Not that the captain would have confessed his doubt to the pilot, or the pilot to the captain, and that was where the real danger lay. If they could only have permitted themselves to speak of their possible peril, it would probably have disappeared.

The steamer was French and her captain a French naval officer, and very likely he and the pilot did not understand each other any too well. That speed should be lessened, under the circumstances, was a matter of course; but not to have gone on at all would have been even wiser. Not to speak of the shore they were nearing, they might be sure they were not the only craft steaming or sailing over those busy waters, and vessels have sometimes run against one another in a fog as thick as that. Something could be done in that direction, and lanterns with bright colors were freely swung out; but the fog was likely to diminish their usefulness, somewhat. None of the passengers were in a mood to go to bed, with the end of their voyage so near, and they seemed, one and all, disposed to discuss the fog. All but one, and he a boy.

A boy of about Dab Kinzer's age, slender and delicate looking, with curly, light-brown hair, blue eyes, and a complexion which would have been fair but for the traces it bore of a hotter sun than that of either France or America. He seemed to be all alone, and to be feeling very lonely, that night; and he was leaning over the rail, peering out into the mist, humming to himself a sweet, wild air, in a strange, musical tone.

Very strange. Very musical. Perhaps no such words had ever before gone out over the waves of that part of the Atlantic; for Frank Harley was a missionary's son, "going home to be educated," and the sweet, low-voiced song was a Hindustanee hymn which his mother had taught him in far-away India.

Suddenly the hymn was cut short by the hoarse voice of the look-out, as it announced: "A white light, close aboard, on the windward bow."

And that was rapidly followed by even hoarser hails, replied to by a voice which was clear and strong enough but not hoarse at all. The next moment something, which was either a white sail or a ghost, came slipping along through the fog, and then the conversation did not require to be shouted any longer. Frank could even hear one person say to another, out there in the mist: "Aint it a big thing, Ford, that you know French. I mean to study it as soon as we get home."

"It's as easy as eating. Shall I tell 'em we've got some fish?"

"Of course. Sell 'em the whole cargo."

"Sell them? Why not make them a present?"

"We may need the money to get home with. They're a splendid lot. Enough for the whole cabin full."

"Dat's a fack. Capt'in Dab Kinzer's de man for me, he is."

"How much then?"

"Twenty-five dollars for the lot. They're worth it. 'Specially if we lose Ham's boat."

Dab's philosophy was a little out of gear, but a perfect rattle of questions and answers followed, in French, and, somewhat to Frank Harley's astonishment, the bargain was promptly concluded.

How were they to get the fish on board? Nothing easier, since the little "Swallow" could run along so nicely under the stern of the great steamer, while a large basket was swung out at the end of a long, slender spar, with a pulley to lower and raise it. Even the boys from Long Island were astonished at the number and size of the prime, freshly caught blue-fish to which they were treating the passengers of the "Prudhomme," and the basket had to come and go again and again.

The steamer's steward, on his part, avowed that he had never before met so honest a lot of Yankee fishermen. Perhaps not; for high prices and short weight are apt to go together where "luxuries" are selling. The pay itself was handed out in the same basket which went for the fish.

The wind was not nearly as high as it had been, and the sea had for some time been going down.

Twenty minutes later, Frank Harley heard, for he understood French very well:

"Hallo, the boat! What are you following us for?"

"Oh, we wont run you down. Don't be alarmed. We've lost our way out here, and we're going to follow you in. Hope you know where you are."

And then there was a cackle of surprise and laughter among the steamer's officers, in which Frank and some of the passengers joined, and the saucy little "fishing-boat" came steadily on in the wake of her gigantic guide.

"This is grand for us," remarked Dab Kinzer to Ford, as he kept his eyes on the after-lantern of the "Prudhomme." "They pay all our pilot fees."

"But they're going to New York."

"So are we, if to-morrow doesn't come out clear and with a good wind to go home by."

"It's better than crossing the Atlantic in the dark, anyhow. But what a price we got for those fish!"

"They're ready to pay well for such things at the end of the voyage," said Dab. "I expected they'd try and beat us down a peg. They generally do. We only got about fair market price, after all, only we got rid of our whole catch at one sale."

Hour followed hour, and the "Swallow" followed the steamer, and the fog followed them both so densely that sometimes even Dick Lee's keen eyes could with difficulty make out the "Prudhomme's" light. And now Ford Foster ventured to take a bit of a nap, so sure did he feel that all the danger was over, and that "Captain Kinzer" was equal to what Dick Lee called the "nagivation" of that yacht. How long he had slept he could not have guessed, but he was suddenly awakened by a great cry from out the mist beyond them, and the loud exclamation of Dab Kinzer, still at the tiller:

"I believe she's run ashore!"

It was a loud cry, indeed, and there was good reason for it. Well for all on board the great French steamship that she was running no faster at the time, and that there was no hurricane of a gale to make things worse for her. Pilot and captain had both together missed their reckoning,--neither of them could ever afterward tell how,--and there they were stuck fast in the sand, with the noise of breakers ahead of them and the dense fog all around.

Frank Harley peered anxiously over the rail again, but he could not have complained that he was "wrecked in sight of shore;" for the steamer was anything but a wreck yet, and there was no such thing as a shore in sight.

"It's an hour to sunrise," said Dab to Ford, after the latter had managed to comprehend the situation. "We may as well run further in and see what we can see."

It must have been aggravating to the people on the steamer to see that cockle-shell of a yacht dancing safely along over the shoal on which their "leviathan" had struck, and to hear Ford Foster sing out: "If we'd known you meant to run in here, we'd have followed some other pilot."

"They're in no danger at all," said Dab. "If their own boats don't take 'em all ashore, the coast-wreckers will."

"The Government life-savers, I s'pose you mean?"

"Yes, they're all along here, everywhere. Hark! there goes the distress gun. Bang away! It sounds a good deal more mad than scared."

So it did, and so they really were--captain, pilot, passengers and all.

"Captain Kinzer" found that he could safely run in for a couple of hundred yards or so; but there were signs of surf beyond, and he had no anchor to hold on by. His only course was to tack back and forth, as carefully as possible, and wait for daylight, as the French sailors were doing, with what patience they could command.

In less than half an hour, however, a pair of long, graceful, buoyant-looking life-boats, manned each by an officer and eight rowers, came shooting through the mist, in response to the repeated summons of the steamer's cannon.

"It's all right now," said Dab. "I knew they wouldn't be long in coming. Let's find where we are."

That was easy enough. The steamer had gone ashore on a sand-bar a quarter of a mile from the beach and a short distance from Seabright, on the Jersey coast; and there was no probability of any worse harm coming to her than the delay in her voyage, and the cost of pulling her out from the sandy bed into which she had so blindly thrust herself. The passengers would, most likely, be taken ashore with their baggage, and sent to the city overland.

"In fact," said Ford Foster, "a sand-bar isn't as bad for a steamer as a pig is for a locomotive."

"The train you was wrecked in," said Dab, "was running fast. Perhaps the pig was. Now, the sand-bar was standing still, and the steamer was going slow. My! what a crash there'd have been, if she'd been running ten or twelve knots an hour with a heavy sea on."

By daylight there were plenty of other craft around, including yachts and sail-boats from Long Branch, and "all along shore," and the Long Island boys treated the occupants of these as if they had sent for them and were glad to see them.

"Seems to me, your're inclined to be inquisitive, Dab," said Ford, as his friend peered sharply into and around one craft after another, but just then Dabney sung out:

"Hullo, Jersey, what are you doing with two grapnels? Is that boat of yours balky?"

"Mind your eye, youngster. They're both mine, I reckon."

"You might sell me one cheap," continued Dab, "considering how you got 'em. Give you ten cents for the big one."

Ford thought he understood the matter, and said nothing; but the "Jersey wrecker" had "picked up" those two anchors, one time and another, and had no objection at all to talking "trade."

"Ten cents! Let you have it for fifty dollars."

"Is it gold, or only silver gilt?"

"Pure gold, my boy, but seein' it's you, I'll say ten dollars."

"Take your pay in clams?"

"Oh, hush, I haint no time to gabble. Mebbe I'll git a job here, 'round this yer wreck. If you want the grapn'l, what'll you gimme?"

"Five dollars, gold, take it or leave it," said Dab, as he pulled out a coin from the pay he had taken for his blue-fish.

In three minutes more the "Swallow" was furnished with a much larger and better anchor than the one she had lost the day before, and Dick Lee exclaimed:

"It jes' takes Capt'in Kinzer!"

For some minutes before this, as the light grew clearer and the fog lifted a little, Frank Harley had been watching them from the rail of the "Prudhomme" and wondering if all the fisher-boys in America dressed as well as these two.

"Hullo, you!" was the greeting which now came to his ears. "Go ashore in my boat?"

"Not till I have eaten some of your fish for breakfast," replied Frank. "What's your name?"

"Captain Dabney Kinzer, of 'most anywhere on Long Island. What's yours?"

"Frank Harley, of Rangoon."

"I declare!" almost shouted Ford Foster, "if you're not the chap my sister Annie told me of. You're going to Albany, to my uncle, Joe Hart's, aren't you?"

"Yes, to Mr. Hart's, and then to Grantley, to school."

"That's it. Well, you just come along with us, then. Get your kit out of your state-room. We can send over to the city for the rest of your baggage after it gets in."

"Along with you, where?"

"To my father's house, instead of ashore among those wreckers and hotel-people. The captain'll tell you it's all right."

It was a trifle irregular, no doubt, but there was the "Prudhomme" ashore, and all "landing rules" were a little out of joint by reason of that circumstance. The "Swallow" lay at anchor while Frank got his breakfast, and such of his baggage as was not "stowed away," and, meantime, Captain Kinzer and his "crew" made a very deep hole in their own supplies, for their night of danger and excitement had made them wonderfully hungry.

"Do you mean to sail home?" asked Ford, in some astonishment.

"Why not? If we could do it in the night and in a storm, we surely can in a day of such splendid weather as is coming. The wind's all right too, what there is of it."