As he flung up his right hand and pa.s.sed the end of the painter through the lug a body shot over his head. Spurling had leaped on the top of the dropping buoy. Percy was dragged down under the surface, the whistle still ringing in his ears. He clung desperately to lug and painter.

The vibrations ceased. The can had reached its lowest point. It was rising again. Out came his head.

"Can you hold on a minute, Perce?" roared Spurling's voice.

"Yes," strangled Percy.

"Then let go that painter! I've got it."

Hanging head down, his legs twined round a bail, Spurling worked rapidly with both hands. Soon he had fastened the rope securely to the lug, mooring the dory to the buoy.

OO-OO-OO-OOH!

The can was sinking again. Putting both hands under Percy's arms, Jim lifted him. Then he lowered his grip to the boy's waist. That terrific blast rendered speech inaudible, but Percy understood. As the water raised part of his weight, he scrambled up over his friend's body.

Thirty seconds later, drenched and gasping, they stood clinging to the bails on the top of the buoy.

XIX

ON THE WHISTLER

Jim was the first to recover his breath.

"Well!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Here we are! And mighty fortunate! We'll neither of us ever have a closer shave."

He looked southwest, where the ledge was breaking white through the gloom, and shook his head. Percy, shivering with excitement, said nothing; but he felt as thankful as his mate. They stood close together on the circular top, holding on to the crossed bails, waist-high.

Between them rose the whistle, thirty inches tall. Every time they sank in the trough it emitted its dismal bellow.

To leeward the dory wallowed at the end of her painter, almost full of water.

"Split her bow when we struck," said Spurling. "Just as well not to be in her. At any rate, we're not drifting."

Their position, however, was none too secure. The buoy had a rise and fall of seven feet. Unsteadied by keel or rudder, it bobbed unexpectedly this way and that. The boys were obliged to cling fast to keep their footing on the narrow, slippery top.

A sudden jump of the rolling can wrenched Percy's right hand from its hold. But for his left, he would have been flung into the sea.

"That won't do," said Spurling.

Producing a coil of line, he took three or four turns round Percy's waist, and lashed him fast to the bails. He did the same for himself.

"Guess we'll stick on now," he remarked.

"Where did you get that rope?" asked Percy.

"It's all that's left of the ground-line. Thought it might come in handy, so I jammed it inside my oil-coat before I jumped. Never can tell when you'll need a few feet for something or other."

The screech of the buoy, recurring regularly, set their ears ringing.

"We've got to choke that off!" exclaimed Spurling, finally. "We'll go crazy, sure, if we have to listen to it all night."

"How'll you do it? Jam something into the mouth of the whistle?"

"Might smother it that way, but I know an easier one."

He pushed his handkerchief into the curved end of the intake tube just as the bellowing buoy reached its lowest point. The next time it sank there was no sound.

"Can't sing out unless it fills up with air," remarked Spurling. "It's human, so far!"

"Is it all right to shut the signal off altogether? Mightn't some vessel strike the shoal if she doesn't hear it?"

"Not much chance of that to-night! Everything'll give Cashe's a wide berth in a norther. But I'll let it scream a few times every ten minutes. That'll be often enough to warn off any craft within hearing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY STOOD CLOSE TOGETHER ON THE CIRCULAR TOP, HOLDING ON TO THE CROSSED BAILS, WAIST-HIGH]

The last red embers of the sunset died out, and from horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with stars. Even the boys, wet, hungry, and exhausted, could not be blind to such magnificence.

"Good evening to study astronomy, Perce!"

"Never saw a finer! But I'd want a steadier foundation than this for my telescope."

As on the previous night, the sea was aglow with phosph.o.r.escence. Every wave was crested with silver. Buoy and tugging dory kept the water alive with light as they rose and fell. Leeward the long shoal broke in glittering foam.

Spurling gazed silently down into the eddying tide.

"Runs fast, doesn't it?" said Percy.

"Yes; it's the ebb out of Fundy. Comes piling down over Cashe's at a two-knot rate. When the flood begins it'll run just as hard the other way. That's what makes the shoal so dangerous. There's only from four to seven fathoms over the ledge at low water, and that's little enough in a storm."

"Were you ever down here before?"

"No; but I've heard Uncle Tom Sprowl tell about the place dozens of times. Once, in particular, he was here in a schooner, hand-lining. It was almost calm, just a light east wind blowing, when they anch.o.r.ed an eighth of a mile to weather of the shoal. Pretty soon the decks were alive with fish. It kept breezing on all the time, and the ledge broke higher and higher; but they were having such good luck they hated to leave. So they hung to it till it got too rough for a small boat, and the breaker was twenty or thirty feet high. There was a big cod or haddock on every line, when all of a sudden the cable parted and they began to blow down on the ledge. It took some lively work to save the schooner and themselves. They got sail on her just in time to skin by the end of the breaker. Uncle Tom's been out in some pretty bad storms, but he's always said the time he parted his cable on Cashe's was the closest shave he ever had. See that shark!"

Ten yards off, just under the surface, appeared the glittering outlines of a great fish. It moved leisurely, its projecting fin making a silver ripple.

"Twelve feet, if he's an inch! I'd hate to fall overboard while he's around."

"Think he's a man-eater?"

"Don't know! But I'd rather let somebody else find out. There's another!

I've heard fishermen say the sea round here's alive with 'em. I haven't a doubt but those two fellows that chased us to-day are somewhere about.

Once they get after a boat, they'll follow it till the cows come home.

Guess I'll let Ole Bull give us a few notes!"

He pulled his handkerchief out of the intake tube. Presently the voice of the whistle was echoing across the sea. After a half-dozen screeches Spurling stopped up the tube again.