Throw a lead-line overboard, and ascertain the drift!" Cap now roared
to the people forward. A sign from Jasper sustaining this order, it was
instantly obeyed. All on deck watched, with nearly breathless interest,
the result of the experiment. The lead was no sooner on the bottom, than
the line tended forward, and in about two minutes it was seen that the
cutter had drifted her length dead in towards the bluff. Jasper looked
gravely, for he well knew nothing would hold the vessel did she get
within the vortex of the breakers, the first line of which was appearing
and disappearing about a cable's length directly under their stern.

"Traitor!" exclaimed Cap, shaking a finger at the young commander,
though passion choked the rest. "You must answer for this with your
life!" he added after a short pause. "If I were at the head of this
expedition, Sergeant, I would hang him at the end of the main-boom, lest
he escape drowning."

"Moderate your feelings, brother; be more moderate, I beseech you;
Jasper appears to have done all for the best, and matters may not be so
bad as you believe them."

"Why did he not run for the creek he mentioned?--why has he brought
us here, dead to windward of that bluff, and to a spot where even the
breakers are only of half the ordinary width, as if in a hurry to drown
all on board?"

"I headed for the bluff, for the precise reason that the breakers are so
narrow at this spot," answered Jasper mildly, though his gorge had risen
at the language the other held.

"Do you mean to tell an old seaman like me that this cutter could live
in those breakers?"

"I do not, sir. I think she would fill and swamp if driven into the
first line of them; I am certain she would never reach the shore on her
bottom, if fairly entered. I hope to keep her clear of them altogether."

"With a drift of her length in a minute?"

"The backing of the anchors does not yet fairly tell, nor do I even hope
that _they_ will entirely bring her up."

"On what, then, do you rely? To moor a craft, head and stern, by faith,
hope, and charity?"

"No, sir, I trust to the under-tow. I headed for the bluff because I
knew that it was stronger at that point than at any other, and because
we could get nearer in with the land without entering the breakers."

This was said with spirit, though without any particular show of
resentment. Its effect on Cap was marked, the feeling that was uppermost
being evidently that of surprise.