“ ’Twon’t be any use underrunnin’ the trawl tonight,” said Tom Platt, with quiet despair.
“He come alongside special to cuss us. I’d give my wage an’ share to see him at the gangway o’ the old Ohio ’fore we quit floggin’. Jest abaout six dozen, an’ Sam Mocatta layin’ ’em on crisscross!”
The disheveled “heel-tapper” danced drunkenly down wind, and all eyes followed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph voice:
“It wass his own death made him speak so! He iss fey—fey, I tell you! Look!”
She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or four miles distant. The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the light passed so did the schooner. She dropped into a hollow and—was not.
“Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!” shouted Disko, jumping aft. “Drunk or sober, we’ve got to help ’em. Heave short and break her out! Smart!”
Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the setting of the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and to save time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving in as they moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted to except in matters of life and death, and the little We’re Here complained like a human. They ran down to where Abishai’s craft had vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothing more.