An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W---- stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said with a doomful sigh:-- "Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it." All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its being "too bad, too bad--ah, if we could _only_ have got here half an hour sooner!" and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob and had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensibly the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep mellow notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck:-- "Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!" The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck. "M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less-three!... Half twain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less--" Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--and it is a weird sound always in the night. Every pilot in the lot was watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible marks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--he would meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk one caught a coherent sentence now and then, such as:-- "There; she's over the first reef all right!" After a pause, another subdued voice:-- "Her stern's coming down just _exactly_ right, by _George_!" "Now she's in the marks; over she goes!" Somebody else muttered:-- "Oh, it was done beautiful--_beautiful_!"