第25章 Continued Perplexities(1)

THERE was no use in arguing with a person like this.I promptly put such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the countless crossing-marks began to stay with me.

But the result was just the same.I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before another presented itself.

Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the water and pretending to read it as if it were a book;but it was a book that told me nothing.

A time came at last,however,when Mr.Bixby seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a lesson on water-reading.So he began--'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water Now,that's a reef.Moreover,it's a bluff reef.There is a solid sand-bar under it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.

There is plenty of water close up to it,but mighty little on top of it.

If you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out.

Do you see where the line fringes out at the upper end and begins to fade away '

'Yes,sir.'

'Well,that is a low place;that is the head of the reef.

You can climb over there,and not hurt anything.Cross over,now,and follow along close under the reef--easy water there--not much current.'

I followed the reef along till I approached the fringed end.

Then Mr.Bixby said--

'Now get ready.Wait till I give the word.She won't want to mount the reef;a boat hates shoal water.Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well in hand.

NOW cramp her down!Snatch her!snatch her!'

He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around until it was hard down,and then we held it so.

The boat resisted,and refused to answer for a while,and next she came surging to starboard,mounted the reef,and sent a long,angry ridge of water foaming away from her bows.

'Now watch her;watch her like a cat,or she'll get away from you.

When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little,in a jerky,greasy sort of way,let up on her a trifle;it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal;but keep edging her up,little by little,toward the point.

You are well up on the bar,now;there is a bar under every point,because the water that comes down around it forms an eddy and allows the sediment to sink.Do you see those fine lines on the face of the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan.

Well,those are little reefs;you want to just miss the ends of them,but run them pretty close.Now look out--look out!

Don't you crowd that slick,greasy-looking place;there ain't nine feet there;she won't stand it.She begins to smell it;look sharp,I tell you!Oh blazes,there you go!

Stop the starboard wheel!Quick!Ship up to back!

Set her back!

The engine bells jingled and the engines answered promptly,shooting white columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes,but it was too late.The boat had 'smelt'the bar in good earnest;the foamy ridges that radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared,a great dead swell came rolling forward and swept ahead of her,she careened far over to larboard,and went tearing away toward the other shore as if she were about scared to death.

We were a good mile from where we ought to have been,when we finally got the upper hand of her again.

During the afternoon watch the next day,Mr.Bixby asked me if Iknew how to run the next few miles.I said--'Go inside the first snag above the point,outside the next one,start out from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard,make a square crossing and----'

'That's all right.I'll be back before you close up on the next point.'

But he wasn't.He was still below when I rounded it and entered upon a piece of river which I had some misgivings about.I did not know that he was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform.

I went gaily along,getting prouder and prouder,for he had never left the boat in my sole charge such a length of time before.

I even got to 'setting'her and letting the wheel go,entirely,while Ivaingloriously turned my back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune,a sort of easy indifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixby and other great pilots.Once I inspected rather long,and when I faced to the front again my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clapped my teeth together I should have lost it.One of those frightful bluff reefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows!

My head was gone in a moment;I did not know which end I stood on;I gasped and could not get my breath;I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that it wove itself together like a spider's web;the boat answered and turned square away from the reef,but the reef followed her!

I fled,and still it followed,still it kept--right across my bows!

I never looked to see where I was going,I only fled.

The awful crash was imminent--why didn't that villain come!

If I committed the crime of ringing a bell,I might get thrown overboard.

But better that than kill the boat.So in blind desperation I started such a rattling 'shivaree'down below as never had astounded an engineer in this world before,I fancy.Amidst the frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furious way,and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into the woods on the other side of the river.

Just then Mr.Bixby stepped calmly into view on the hurricane deck.

My soul went out to him in gratitude.My distress vanished;I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara,with Mr.Bixby on the hurricane deck.

He blandly and sweetly took his tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers,as if it were a cigar--we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree,and the passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up these commands to me ever so gently--'Stop the starboard.Stop the larboard.Set her back on both.'

The boat hesitated,halted,pressed her nose among the boughs a critical instant,then reluctantly began to back away.

'Stop the larboard.Come ahead on it.Stop the starboard.

Come ahead on it.Point her for the bar.