On drawing near the battling line of breakers which marked the meeting of sea and land they could perceive within the nearly invisible horizon an equilateral triangle of lights. It was formed of three stars, a red on the one side, a green on the other, and a white on the summit. This, composed of mast-head and side lamps, was all that was visible of the Spruce, which now faced end-on about half-a-mile distant, and was still nearing the pier. The girls went further, and stood on the foreshore, listening to the din. Seaward appeared nothing distinct save a black horizontal band embodying itself out of the grey water, strengthening its blackness, and enlarging till it looked like a nearing wall. It was the concave face of a coming wave. On its summit a white edging arose with the aspect of a lace frill; it broadened, and fell over the front with a terrible concussion. Then all before them was a sheet of whiteness, which spread with amazing rapidity, till they found themselves standing in the midst of it, as in a field of snow. Both felt an insidious chill encircling their ankles, and they rapidly ran up the beach.
'You girls, come away there, or you'll be washed off: what need have ye for going so near?'
Ethelberta recognized the stentorian voice as that of Captain Flower, who, with a party of boatmen, was discovered to be standing near, under the shelter of a wall. He did not know them in the gloom, and they took care that he should not. They retreated further up the beach, when the hissing fleece of froth slid again down the shingle, dragging the pebbles under it with a rattle as of a beast gnawing bones.
The spot whereon the men stood was called 'Down-under-wall;' it was a nook commanding a full view of the bay, and hither the nautical portion of the village unconsciously gravitated on windy afternoons and nights, to discuss past disasters in the reticent spirit induced by a sense that they might at any moment be repeated. The stranger who should walk the shore on roaring and sobbing November eves when there was not light sufficient to guide his footsteps, and muse on the absoluteness of the solitude, would be surprised by a smart 'Good-night' being returned from this corner in company with the echo of his tread. In summer the six or eight perennial figures stood on the breezy side of the wall--in winter and in rain to leeward; but no weather was known to dislodge them.
'I had no sooner come ashore than the wind began to fly round,' said the previous speaker; 'and it must have been about the time they were off Old-Harry Point. "She'll put back for certain," I said;and I had no more thought o' seeing her than John's set-net that was carried round the point o' Monday.'
'Poor feller: his wife being in such a state makes him anxious to land if 'a can: that's what 'tis, plain enough.'
'Why that?' said Flower.
'The doctor's aboard, 'a believe: "I'll have the most understanding man in Sandbourne, cost me little or much," he said.'
''Tis all over and she's better,' said the other. 'I called half-an-hour afore dark.'
Flower, being an experienced man, knew how the judgment of a ship's master was liable to be warped by family anxieties, many instances of the same having occurred in the history of navigation. He felt uneasy, for he knew the deceit and guile of this bay far better than did the master of the Spruce, who, till within a few recent months, had been a stranger to the place. Indeed, it was the bay which had made Flower what he was, instead of a man in thriving retirement.
The two great ventures of his life had been blown ashore and broken up within that very semicircle. The sturdy sailor now stood with his eyes fixed on the triangle of lights which showed that the steamer had not relinquished her intention of bringing up inside the pier if possible; his right hand was in his pocket, where it played with a large key which lay there. It was the key of the lifeboat shed, and Flower was coxswain. His musing was on the possibility of a use for it this night.
It appeared that the captain of the Spruce was aiming to pass in under the lee of the pier; but a strong current of four or five knots was running between the piles, drifting the steamer away at every attempt as soon as she slowed. To come in on the other side was dangerous, the hull of the vessel being likely to crash against and overthrow the fragile erection, with damage to herself also.
Flower, who had disappeared for a few minutes, now came back.
'It is just possible I can make 'em hear with the trumpet, now they be to leeward,' he said, and proceeded with two or three others to grope his way out upon the pier, which consisted simply of a row of rotten piles covered with rotten planking, no balustrade of any kind existing to keep the unwary from tumbling off. At the water level the piles were eaten away by the action of the sea to about the size of a man's wrist, and at every fresh influx the whole structure trembled like a spider's web. In this lay the danger of making fast, for a strong pull from a headfast rope might drag the erection completely over. Flower arrived at the end, where a lantern hung.
'Spruce ahoy!' he blared through the speaking trumpet two or three times.
There seemed to be a reply of some sort from the steamer.
'Tuesday's gale hev loosened the pier, Cap'n Ounce; the bollards be too weak to make fast to: must land in boats if ye will land, but dangerous; yer wife is out of danger, and 'tis a boy-y-y-y!'
Ethelberta and Picotee were at this time standing on the beach a hundred and fifty yards off. Whether or not the master of the steamer received the information volunteered by Flower, the two girls saw the triangle of lamps get narrow at its base, reduce themselves to two in a vertical line, then to one, then to darkness.
The Spruce had turned her head from Knollsea.
'They have gone back, and I shall not have my wedding things after all!' said Ethelberta. 'Well, I must do without them.'
