"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's
arm.
The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas
streamed out from her fore-yards. Yet she came with a rush like a
greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs,
and closer with every instant. A man, standing on any one of the points
she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck.
"Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock. By crum! if she
does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!"
"What's the use, i' this sea? Besides, her steerin' gear's broke,"
answered Zeb, without moving his eyes.
This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the
cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more above high-water mark.
As the little schooner came tearing abreast of it, a huge sea caught her
broadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry. The men and
women on the headland held their breath while she hung on its apex.
Then she toppled and plunged across the mouth of the cove, quivering.
She must have shaved the point by a foot.
"The Raney! the Raney!" shouted young Zeb, shaking off Ruby's clutch.
"The Raney, or else--"
He did not finish his sentence, for the stress of the flying seconds
choked down his words.
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