some of my rage had gone out of me in my fight to windward in the gale's teeth; but when[216] i saw john close by me there it all came back to me. for half a minute the thought was in my head to run him down and sink him—and i had the wind of him and could have done it. even in my rage, though, i could not play a coward trick like that on him; and before i could make any other plan up he set me in the way of one himself.
"i'm making for the wreck gat," he sung out. "give me a lead in, george—'tis better known to thee than to me."
had i stopped to think about it, his asking me to lead him in would have been a puzzle to me, he being just as good a sailor as i was and just as well knowing every twist of the sea and the sands. but i didn't stop to think about the queerness of what he wanted—why he was for making things double safe by my leading him is clear enough to me now—because my wits were at work at something else.
while the words were coming out of his mouth—it all was in my head like a flash—i saw my way to settling with him, and to settling fair. he was crazy to want to try for it through the wreck gat on the half tide, with the run of the ebb meeting the onset of the breakers and a whole gale blowing. but his being crazy[217] that way was his look out, not mine. i'd give him the lead in that he wanted—asking him to take nothing that i didn't take first myself, and giving him a better chance than i had because i'd be setting the course for him and he'd have only to follow on. that either of us would pull through would be as it might be. as to my own chance, such as it was, i was ready for it: knowing that i would be no worse off dead with him than i was living with him—and a long sight better off if i put him in the way of the drowning that would finish him, and yet myself won through alive.
that was what got into my head like a flash while he was hailing me, and mighty pleased i was with it. "follow on," i sung out. "i'll give thee a lead." and to myself i was saying: "yes, a lead to hell!"
"all right," he sung out back to me—and let his boat fall off a bit that i might draw ahead of him. as he dropped astern, and the uptilt of his weather rail no longer hid the inside of his boat from me, i saw that there was a biggish bunch of something covered with a tarpaulin' in the stern sheets close by his feet. but i gave no thought to it: all my thought being fixed on what was ahead of me and him[218] in the next half hour. i was glad that we had to wait a little. every minute of waiting meant more wind, and so a bigger fight in the wreck gat between the out-running current and the in-running sea. i had a feeling in my bones that i would pull through and that he wouldn't, and i was keen to see the smash of him as his boat took the sands. after that smash came, the rest of his life could be counted in minutes and seconds—as he floundered and drowned in that wild tumble of sand-thickened waves. so i'd have done with him and be quit of him; and would have a good show—if i didn't drown along with him—for winning tess for my own. if i did drown with him, or if—not being drowned—tess would have none of me, there still would be this much to the good: i'd have served him out for crossing me in my deep heart-wish, and i'd have made certain that he and she never could come together in this world alive.
all that i was thinking as i stood on ahead of him, bucketing through the waves that every minute were heavier with the churned up sand. and i also was thinking, and i remember laughing as the thought came to me, that there was a sort of rightness in the way things were work[219]ing out with us—seeing that the ship that had brought me my tess, and the sea that had given her to me, together were making the death-trap for the man who had stolen away from me her love.
the wind was well up to a gale as we drove on together, me leading him by a half dozen boats' lengths, and from all along to leeward of us came to us through the mist a sort of a groaning roar as the breakers went banging and grinding on the barnard bank. nothing but having the wind and the sea both with us, when we stood in for the gat, saved us from foundering; and yet that same also put us in peril of it, because we had a wide open chance of being pooped by the great following waves which came hanging over and dragging at our sterns.
the mist thinned as we got closer in shoreward, showing me the sand-heavy surf waiting for its chance to scour the life out of us; but also showing me covehithe ness, and covehithe church tower off to the left of it, and so giving me the points that i wanted to steer by. as for the look of the wreck gat, when we opened it, the waves blustered over it so big, and were all in such a whirl and a fury with the current meet[220]ing them, that only a crazy man—as i have said—ever would have tried for it. just about crazy i then was, and the look of it suited me. in that sea the narrow channel was so lashed by the breakers running off from the sands to windward of it that there was no sign of a cleft anywhere. no matter how we steered, getting through it would be just hit or miss with us—and with all my heart and soul i hoped that it would be hit for me and miss for john.
to make in, i had to bear up a little; and getting the wind by even that little abeam gave my boat a send to leeward that was near to doing for me. i was glad of it, though; because i knew that john would get that same send in the wake of me—and with more chance of its finishing him, his boat being a deal less weatherly than mine. and so—as i grazed the sands, and after the graze went on safe again—my heart was light with the thought that i'd got the better of him at last.
"then i could use my eyes to look behind me"
there was no looking back, though, to see what had gone with him. all my eyes were needed for my steering. everywhere about me the sand-heavy water was hugely rising in a great roar and tumble; and as for the sands under it, and there the worst danger was, it was[221] just good luck or bad luck about striking them—and that was all that you could say. twice i felt a jar under me as the boat went deep in the sea-trough; but i did not strike hard enough to hurt me, and i lifted again so quick that i did not broach-to. and then, when i thought that i was fairly through, and had safe water right ahead of me, there came a bang on the boat's side—as the sea-trough took me down again—that near stove me: and right at the side of me, so close that i could have touched it as i lay for a second there in the deep wave-hollow, was the stern-post of tess's sand-bedded ship rising black out of the scum and foam. one foot farther to leeward and the jagged iron of it would have had me past praying for. but it did no harm to me—and as the water covered it again i shot on beyond it into what seemed to me, after the sea i'd hammered through, almost a mill-pond on the lee side of the bank.
then i could use my eyes to look behind me: and what i saw will stay fixed in them till the copper pennies cover them and i see with them no more.
in spite of his send to leeward at the start, john had come through after me without taking the ground; but he had gone farther to leeward[222] than i had, and so was set—when smooth water lay close ahead of him—fairly in death's way. as i looked back i saw only the bow of his boat, with the scrap of sail above it, riding on the top of an oncoming wave. then the boat tilted forward, and came tearing down the wave-front at a slant toward me, and i saw the whole length of her: and what burned my eyes out was seeing tess there, standing brave and steady, the two hands of her gripping fast the mast.
it was not much more than a second that i had to look at her. with a sharp sound of wood splintering, that i heard above the noise that the sea was making, the boat struck fair and full on that iron set timber—and then the wave that had sent her there was playing with the scattered bits of her, and the sand-heavy breakers were tumbling about the bodies of the two that she had borne.
if the sea meant to give me back my dead tess again, i knew where i should find her—and there i did find her. on the shingle under covehithe ness she was lying: come to me there at the last, as she came to me there at the first, a sea upcast. that last time she was all mine. there was no john left living to[223] steal her away from me. and if she was not mine as i wanted her, at least she never was his at all. in that far i had my will and way over him, and for that much i am glad.
and so, she being all my own, home along the beach for the second time i carried her. it was a wonder to me, as she lay in my arms, how light she was—and she so tall!
