CHAPTER XIII OFF CAPE CROKER Corkey has climbed to the upper deck and stands there alone in the darkness and the gale. The engine stops. The steamer falls into the trough of the sea. The Africa carries two yawls attached to her davits. Corkey is feeling about one of these yawls. He suspects that the lines are old. He steps to the other side. He strains at a rope. He strives to unloose it from its cleat. The line is stiff and almost frozen. "I'd be afraid to lower myself, anyhow," he observes, for he has the notion that everything about the Africa is insecure. The ship gives another lurch. Something must be done. Almost before he knows it, Corkey has cut loose the stern. The rope seems strong. Now he must unwind the bow line from its cleat, or he will lose his boat. He kicks at the cleat. He loosens a loop. He raises the boat and then lowers it. The tackle works. The other yawl and its tackle roll and creak in the gale. Nobody else comes up the ladders. The man aloft pulls his line out and fastens it to the cleat which he tried to kick off. He seizes the stern of the yawl and hoists it far over the upper deck. The yawl falls outside the gunwale below, with a great crash and splintering of oars. "She's there!" says Corkey, feeling the taut line. "She's there, and the rope is good. The davit is good." The people below seem to know that a boat is being put out. But Corkey is the only man on the ship who thinks the idea practicable. "Of what use to lower a small boat," say the sailors, "in Georgian Bay?" The man above must descend on that little line. He doesn't want to do that. He goes to the other boat, and makes a feeble experiment of hoisting and lowering, by means of both davits, the man to sit in the yawl. "I couldn't do it!" he vows, and recrosses. "What'll I do when I get down there?" he mutters. "How'll I get loose?" He must make his descent knife in hand. "I can't do it!" he says, and gets out his knife. It is a large fur-handled hunting knife--like Corkey in its style. Corkey peers down on deck. The wood-choppers are fastening life-preservers about their bodies. Whether they be crying or shouting, cannot be told. He sees human forms hurrying past the cabin window, and there is reflected the yellow, wooden, ribby thing which he knows to be a life-preserver. It is a cheering thing in such a moment. "I wish I had one," he says, but he holds to the rope of his boat. There is no crew, in the proper sense of the word. Not an officer or man on board feels a responsibility for the lives of the passengers. As at a country summer resort, each person must wait on himself. "Nobody is better'n we are," says the captain. The Africa is rapidly foundering. "She must be as rotten as punk," sneers Corkey. He thinks of his cheerful desk at the newspaper office. He thinks of his marine register. He tries to recall the rating of this hulk of an Africa. "Anyhow, it is tough!" he laments.