We cant miss it, said Harvey, stoutly. Ive been in there once before.
No, were all right, said Henry Burns. He went forward and stood looking off eagerly for some sign of light on shore. The island grew black in the twilight, and then was only a vague, indefinite object.
They were in great spirits, though, so they made out, but it was just a bit dreary for all that, almost drifting down with the tide, and only a few puffs of wind now and then, with not even a light in a fishermans cabin showing on that shore.
Then, too, the very calmness of the night made sounds more distinct. And just a little to seaward, a mile or two below where the harbour should be, there sounded the heaving of the ground-swell against the reefs that lay about Loon Island so thickly. And the sound of the shattering of a wave as it drops down upon a reef in the night, amid strange waters, is not a cheerful thing to hear.
Perhaps it was this doleful, ominous sound more than anything else that somehow took the enthusiasm out of them. It was such an uncertain sound, that subdued crashing upon the reefs. Was it a half-mile away? Was it a mile? Was it near? It was hard to tell.
Just how uncertain they did feel, and just how anxious they had grown in the last half-hour of darkness, was best revealed by Henry Burns when, from his watch forward, he said suddenly, but very quietly, There are the lights, Jack. Were close in.
It was his manner of expression when he was most deeply affected a calm, modulated tone that had a world of meaning in it.
A-h-h! exclaimed Harvey. There
was no mistaking the relief in his expression. I knew they ought to be here, but they were a long time showing.
Well, I dont mind saying they could have showed before and suited me better, said Bob. Say, those reefs have a creepy, shivery sound in the night, dont they? Id rather be in the harbour.
There was a twinkling of lights to guide them now, for a little flotilla of fishing-boats lay snug within, each with its harbour light set; and the lamps in the fishermens houses that were here and there straggling along the shores of the large and small island facing the harbour gleamed out from many a kitchen window.
They drifted slowly in under the shadow of the hills of Loon Island and entered the little thoroughfare that ran between the two islands, at a quarter to nine oclock.
We are in luck at the finish, at any rate, said Henry Burns, presently, picking up the boat-hook. Jack, theres a vacant buoy to make fast to.
The buoy, a circular object painted white, showed a little way off the windward bow, and Jack Harvey luffed up to it. Henry Burns caught the mooring; Tom and Bob had the mainsail on the run in a twinkling; and a moment more they were lying safe and snug at their voyages end.
Fifteen minutes later, the sound of heavy sweeps, labouring and grinding in rowlocks, told them that another boat was coming into the harbour from outside with the aid of an ash breeze, the wind having died wholly away. The boat came in close to where they were lying. From their cabin, as they sat eating supper, they could hear a mans voice, rough and heavy, complaining apparently of the bad luck he had had in getting caught outside, deserted by the breeze.
The next moment the young yachtsmen got a rude surprise. The dishes they had set out on the upturned leaves of the centreboard table rattled, and the yacht shook with the shock caused by the other boat clumsily bumping into them astern. Then the rough voice sounded in their ears:
Git away from that mooring! Dont yer know I have the right ter that? What are yer lyin here for?
The yachtsmen rushed out on deck. The boat they saw just astern was a dingy, odd-shaped little sailboat, about twenty-five feet long, sharp at both ends, with the stern queerly perked up into a point like the tail of a duck. A thickly bearded, swarthy man stood at her tiller, where he had been directing, roughly, the efforts of two youths, who had worked the boat in with the sweeps.
Whats the matter with you? cried Harvey, angrily. What do you mean by bumping into us? Weve got our lights up.
You git off from that mooring, I tell you! cried the man, fiercely. Aint I had it all summer? What right have you got interfering?
The mans manner was so threatening and his voice so full of the fury that told of a temper easily aroused, that a less aggressive youth than Harvey might have been daunted. But Harvey had got his bearings and knew where he was.
No, you dont! he replied, sharply. You cant bully us, so it wont do you any good to try. This is a government buoy, and the first boat up to it has the right to use it unless the revenue men complain. You can push your old tub out of the way.
Better tell him we will give him a line astern if he wants it, suggested Henry Burns. That wont do any harm.
I wont, exclaimed Harvey. Hes taken enough paint off the Viking already, I dare say. But he added you can if you want to. I dont care.
So Henry Burns made the offer.