She stopped bailing2 out the water that threatened to fill the little dory, sat up and peered over the edge of her dripping cradle.
Presence of mind grows like all other virtues3. Just behind her head as she lay flat in the boat, stuck in a little wooden pocket of the dory, was what Captain Andy called a bailer-scoop, like a parlor4 coal-shovel, with no handle to speak of.
Jessica, after she got a grip on herself and did the hardest thing that a girl could do under the circumstances—to lie flat, outwardly calm, and let herself be spun5 and whirled in the trough of the sea, driven whither the wind chose to carry her—remembered its existence.
Slipping a hand behind her, she drew it out of the “rising” pocket in which it was stuck and began to ladle out the water on either side of her as one might ladle soup.
She soon realized the wisdom of Captain Andy’s advice, for while she lay “flat as a pancake” or a flounder, the buoyant, flat-bottomed dory rode the waves, bow on, side on, stern on, any way on, without capsizing; indeed, the little boat seemed to enjoy the wet dance.
And, now and again, strange as it may seem, the girl felt a queer thrill of enjoyment6 or excitement shoot through her fear, although she was very much ashamed of the unconscious foolhardiness which had got her into such a plight7 as this and was at intervals8 tortured by the thought of how others must be suffering, now, on her account, her fellow-campers on the Sugarloaf, Guardian9 and Camp Fire Girls.
There was one human companion who seemed to be near her, although long ago the seas had closed over him, just because her girlish imagination saw in him such an heroic figure; that was her great-grandfather.
It was when she thought of him that she felt the thrill of exhilaration; she was having an experience on a small scale of the brine-fighting perils10 amid which his life, as a sea-captain, had been passed and she grew more and more determined11 to meet it with a courage worthy12 of his great-grandchild.
So, when the dory mounted on the back of a white-headed comber and then slid down into a hollow, shipping13 a small torrent14 of water over its side, so that she lay in a pool, her short skirt, green, woolen15 sweater and uncovered hair soaked, she raised herself a little cautiously and bailed16 “for all she was worth,” knowing that the one imminent17 danger was that, between the united deluge18 of rain and wave, the plucky19 twelve-foot boat might fill and be swamped.
Thus she managed to hold drowning at bay until she became aware of the before-mentioned change in the forces at war with her; for one thing the rain grew lighter20; there was a break in the heavy clouds above; the sou’westerly gusts21 seemed tired of roaring and chopping up the tidal waves; they sank to a lull22 like a beating of weary wings in the air about her and over the wild bar just ahead of her boat.
And then, all at once, the dory began upon a new figure in its watery23 dance to the tune24 of a new, piping whisper in the wind; it stood still, shuddering25 and rocking, the brave boat, as if afraid to go farther, then it sidled this way and that, waddled26 like a stranded27 duck, waltzed with a wave as partner, backed like a perverse28 donkey, cut about every caper29 that a rudderless rowboat could devise.
“I do believe the wind is shifting!” Jessica’s heart waltzed with the dory. “It’s changing round to the east—I’m sure of it—if it’s with the tide, instead of against it, I may be swept back up the river again.”
It was a dismaying prospect30. Half an hour of such vagrant31 drifting as she had experienced was enough for a lifetime.
“Or I may—I may be swept ashore32 somewhere! It is hauling to the east; I’m certain of it!”
She knew something about the four winds and their direction; she had been keeping a scientific record of them for a month, together with the clouds, rain, fog or mist which, day by day, drifted over Camp Morning-Glory, in order to obtain a new honor-bead, a brown honor for “Camp Craft,” to string upon the leather thong33 about her neck, worn on ceremonial occasions.
If the wind blew from the east it certainly would not hurl34 her straight on until she struck the wild heart of the breakers on the bar.
What it would do with her she didn’t know. As she felt the dory spun and jostled in every direction, lifted high upon the white shoulder of one wave which crowed as it tossed it to another, she just sat and cowered35 under the cold lash36 of the spray, her heart-strings like bowstrings strained almost to snapping, with waiting for watery developments.
“That—that’s what Captain Andy calls the Neck—that sandy point jutting37 out there! Oh, if the boat would only, once, stop dancing and touch bottom!” she gasped38 aloud, stretching out her right arm toward that brown Neck of sand as if to encircle it. “Goody! I feel inside o’ me like a flooded attic40, with everything, odds41 an’ ends of furniture, drifting round and bumping together.”
Her teeth clicked upon the gurgle of hysterical42 laughter—partly a bumped sole—that accompanied his soliloquy.
Another bump! A grounding shock! The dory was rubbing its nose against a long finger of sand slanting43 out from the Neck.
A receding44 surf-wave dragged it back. But the girl was on her feet like a wet flash and stumbling forward over the cross-seats. Sobbing45, panting, she jumped over the rocking, receding bow right into the heavy, breaker-ridden surf dashing upon the Neck.
It was a bold splash that sent the wheeling sea-gulls circling off, amazed. And it was a bolder wade46 through the shallow fringes of surf and on, ploughing on, through the wet, oozing47 sands to gain a foothold upon some firmer sands of the brown Neck.
Once she turned and moaned a temporary farewell to the brave little dory, her watery cradle, that had stood so much. She knew enough about boats to be sure that no craft with a keel could have served her so well.
“Oh! I hate to leave you to be pounded some more,” she gasped aloud, in the wildness surrounding her. “But you—you’ll be picked up later!” addressing the buffeted48 boat that was now, again, revolving49 in a maelstrom50. “The squall is pretty well over at last; the sun will be coming out in a few minutes.”
There was, indeed, a pale glint all over these drab and lonely sands (she had never been in so lonely a spot before) which seemed to herald51 such a friendly move on the sun’s part.
The rain had entirely52 ceased. The wind was piping in an intermittent53 whistle, shrill54, but low, before beginning to blow vigorously from the east.
Between the roar of the surf-waves a silence fell in which she could hear her heart pounding as she dragged herself along in her wet clothing, the water swishing in her canvas shoes which sank deep into the wet sands at every step.
The silence seemed to whisper to her a word: Quicksands. She drew a lost gasp39 as she remembered how Captain Andy said that a portion of the Neck with its flanking sandspits, as well as parts of the wet beach toward which she was heavily plodding55, were, at low water, “studdled” with them—the tide was still far out.
Terrified anew, she put down her hands and crept along, animal-like, on all fours, feeling the sodden56 sands ahead of her to try to find out whether they were firm or not—the sands that Captain Andy said could “fool one” with their traps.
Now and again they oozed57 like a wet sponge. With difficulty she dragged her feet out.
Would she ever reach a firm, fairly dry spot, real terra firma?
On, ploughing on, through the wet, oozing sands.
She straightened herself, looking ahead as, silently, she put the weary question to her utterly58 strange surroundings.
Courage! The beach for which she was heading was now only about thirty yards away, a narrow strip which, instinct told her, was generally bare even at high water. On the land side it sloped abruptly59 up into a row of sand-hills, the white dunes60 upon the opposite side of the river from the Sugarloaf Peninsula, which had long been distantly familiar to her eye, the dunes to some far peak of which Kenjo had signaled by means of a lantern and blazing broom.
With the memory of that fire-talk, of the signaled message: “Safe at Camp Morning-Glory,” hope blazed in her as blazed the broom-handle. If she could only reach the Boy Scouts61’ Camp somewhere among these dunes, all her troubles would be over.
She felt a momentary62 qualm of vanity about presenting herself as such a wet and draggled castaway and put up a hand to her loose, streaming hair, to make sure it was still all there.
“Oh, what does it matter if I do look a sight after all I’ve been through; they won’t care!” she told herself impatiently. “Goodness! their camp must be nearer than I thought. What was tha-at? A—shout?”
A shout it might be or a savage63 roar or the bellow64 of an animal; it came from some point invisible behind the first line of sand-hills; at first it carried no words with it. Then, as the girl stood quaking, wondering what sort of shore she had been cast on, came a second distant cry freighted with a hoarse65 challenge.
“Hólà! Hólà!” it said. “Why forre you raise de Cain dere—dig, dig, dig—all time dig?”
“Well! this is the very time to dig—after the rain—if you want to find anything,” returned a second voice, without the same element of guttural wildness in it that characterized the first.
“They’re Boy Scouts, digging for treasure—the treasure that Kenjo was questioning the Kullibígan fortune-telling top about!”
Jessica leaped to the conclusion on the wings of an amazed and sudden peal66 of laughter that rocked her in her deep and spongy tracks.
“Who ever, ever heard of boys being so foolish?”
But never was folly67 so welcome! She had been about to drop warily68 upon all fours again, so as not to throw all her weight at once upon any treacherous69 patch of sand that she might come to. Now, she tucked her hair behind her ears and ploughed on boldly upright—no more harm could come to her, with those mirthful voices so near.
She wished she could see the vain diggers. She stared hard at the sand-hill from behind whose wind-scarred, rain-gullied rampart resounded70 their prospecting71 shouts.
She thought she must be catching72 the treasure-seeking contagion73 herself, or else that her drifting trip down-river to the bar had crazed her; she did actually see, under the glint of the lightening sky, a tiny something that flashed like silver in one of the wet, riven grooves74 of that sand-hill.
“Pshaw! it’s only a piece of glass or a bright shell,” she thought. “But it shines like a welcoming eye.”
She was eager, poor girlish castaway, to get near to anything that looked bright and welcoming amid the wild solitude75 around her and more eager still to arrive within easy hail of the infatuated diggers hidden from her by the sandy pyramid thatched with long, rain-wet beach-grass, just beginning to turn yellow.
Fixing her eyes upon the gold-green wave of that grass as it bowed to the careering gusts now lightly skipping out of the east, she unthinkingly set her left foot down in a sandy hollow. That left foot reported that the sand there was firm.
But the right had a different story to tell. As she heavily dragged that right foot out of its last footprint in which it had sunk more than ankle-deep, moved it forward in front of the left and let her weight come on it, there was a swishing, sucking, horrible sound in the sands beneath her.
With all her might she tried to pull the right foot out again—and couldn’t.
Neither could she dislodge the left one.
With her very first struggle she sank above her knees in the spongy sands that still hissed76 as they sucked in water far down beneath the treacherous surface.
“Help! Help! Oh-h, help! I’m—sinking!”
Her cry in its ghastly terror appealed to the sand-hills before her, to everything in heaven and on earth, as it rose shrilly77 above the roar of the surf on the Neck of the breakers upon the bar.
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1
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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2
bailing
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| （凿井时用吊桶）排水 | |
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3
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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4
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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6
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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8
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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9
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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10
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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11
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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12
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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13
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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14
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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15
woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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16
bailed
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| 保释，帮助脱离困境( bail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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18
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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19
plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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20
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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21
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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22
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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23
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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24
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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25
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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26
waddled
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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28
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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29
caper
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| v.雀跃，欢蹦；n.雀跃，跳跃；续随子，刺山柑花蕾；嬉戏 | |
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30
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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31
vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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thong
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| n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带 | |
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34
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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35
cowered
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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37
jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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38
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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39
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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40
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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41
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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42
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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43
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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44
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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45
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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46
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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47
oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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48
buffeted
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| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
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49
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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50
maelstrom
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| n.大乱动；大漩涡 | |
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51
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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52
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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53
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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54
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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55
plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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56
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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57
oozed
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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58
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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59
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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60
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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61
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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62
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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63
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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64
bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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65
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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66
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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67
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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68
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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69
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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70
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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71
prospecting
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| n.探矿 | |
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72
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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73
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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74
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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75
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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76
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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