The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way with her new rig.
Sometimes the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from breaking
into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a success.
Meanwhile the lighthouse had been growing slowly larger. It had now
almost assumed color, and appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky.
The man at the oars could not be prevented from turning his head rather
often to try for a glimpse of this little grey shadow.
At last, from the top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could see
land. Even as the lighthouse was an upright shadow on the sky, this land
seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than
paper. "We must be about opposite New Smyrna," said the cook, who had
coasted this shore often in schooners. "Captain, by the way, I believe
they abandoned that life-saving station there about a year ago."
"Did they?" said the captain.
The wind slowly died away. The cook and the correspondent were not now
obliged to slave in order to hold high the oar. But the waves continued
their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craft, no
longer under way, struggled woundily over them. The oiler or the
correspondent took the oars again.
Shipwrecks are _a propos_ of nothing. If men could only train for
them and have them occur when the men had reached pink condition, there
would be less drowning at sea.
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