58 In Great Waters

began. Our engine stopped just as we were rounding
the rocky point of the harbour, and soon we were
almost hard up against the rocks. I got into the row-
boat and with a line tried to tow her out into deep
water, but a boat thirty-three feet long isnot easy to
hold againstthe waves. I pulled hard and long, while
Captain Oliver tried to get the engine to start, but
in vain. Then he came out and suggested a clever
thing; taking the anchor out in the row-boat some
distance, we dropped it and then going back to the
gas-boat, pulled on the rope until we were well out
from the rocky shore. Of course I was excited,
my first long trip out, I didn’t want to lose my boat
at the very commencement of my work. Then |
managed to get the engine to start and took a little
circle of the Bay to try it out. She seemed all right
and so we went on another six miles to a lighthouse
known as Scarlet Point, where below the light is a
little narrow bight, a very poor excuse for a harbour,
and there we dropped our anchor. We rowed
ashore, visited the keeper and his wife and family,
and held a little service. On leaving, the old engine
trouble started again and as it was getting late we
decided to return. Night comes early in February
on the water. The engine finally stopped and we
began to drift. It was like a night in the trenches,
a miserable, anxious time in the dense darkness.
I had ugly visions of drifting out to sea with the tide.
I cranked so hard that for two months I could feel
it in my elbow. Finally I got enough kick out of
the cylinders to enable us to limp into the harbour.