The rest of the journey was not difficult for an athletic man, and Walker
was quickly an indistinct figure in the fog. He gained the truck all
right, and instantly yelled something. Courtenay fancied he said: "My God! We-ah on the wocks!"
Whatever it was, Walker did not wait, but slid downward with such speed
that it was fortunate the rigging barred his progress.
And then, even while Courtenay was shouting for some explanation, a great
black wall rose out of the deep on the port bow. It was a pinnacle rock,
high as the ship's masts, but only a few feet wide at sea level, and the
Kansas sped past this ugly monitor as though it were a buoy in a
well-marked channel.
Courtenay heard the sea breaking against it. The ship could not have
been more than sixty feet distant, a little more than her own beam, and
he fully expected that she would grind against some outlier in the next
instant. But the Kansas had a charmed life. She ran on unscathed, and
seemed to be traveling in smoother water after this escape.
Walker's dark skin was the color of parchment when he reached the
chart-house.
"Captain," he said, weakly, "I 'll do owt wi' engines, but I'm no good at
this game. That thing fairly banged me. Did ye see it?"
"Did you see land?" demanded Courtenay, imperatively. His spirits rose
with each of these thrills. He felt that it was ordained that his ship
should live.
"Yes, sir. The-aw 's hills, and big ones, a long way ahead, but I 'm no'
goin' up that mast again. It would be suicide. I'm done. I'll nev-ah
fo-get yon stone ghost, no, not if I live to be ninety."
Then Joey, sniffing the morning, uncurled himself, stretched, yawned
loudly, and thought of breakfast, for he had passed a rather disturbed
night, the second in one week. To cope with such excitement, a dog
needed sustenance.