PAGE 8
The Open Boat
by
“Is he waving at us?”
“No, not now! he was, though.”
“Look! There comes another man!”
“He’s running.”
“Look at him go, would you.”
“Why, he’s on a bicycle. Now he’s met the other man. They’re both waving at us. Look!”
“There comes something up the beach.”
“What the devil is that thing?”
“Why, it looks like a boat.”
“Why, certainly it’s a boat.”
“No, it’s on wheels.”
“Yes, so it is. Well, that must be the life-boat. They drag them along shore on a wagon.”
“That’s the life-boat, sure.”
“No, by—- , it’s–it’s an omnibus.”
“I
tell you it’s a life-boat.”
“It is not! It’s an omnibus. I can see it plain. See? One of these big hotel omnibuses.”
“By thunder, you’re right. It’s an omnibus, sure as fate. What do you suppose they are doing with an omnibus? Maybe they are going around collecting the life-crew, hey?”
“That’s it, likely. Look! There’s a fellow waving a little black flag. He’s standing on the steps of the omnibus.
There come those other two fellows. Now they’re all talking together. Look at the fellow with the flag. Maybe he ain’t waving it.”
“That ain’t a flag, is it? That’s his coat. Why, certainly, that’s his coat.”
“So it is. It’s his coat. He’s taken it off and is waving it around his head. But would you look at him swing it.”
“Oh, say, there isn’t any life-saving station there. That’s just a winter resort hotel omnibus that has brought over some of the boarders to see us drown.”
“What’s that idiot with the coat mean? What’s he signaling, anyhow?”
“It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north. There must be a life-saving station up there.”
“No! He thinks we’re fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? Ah, there, Willie.”
“Well, I wish I could make something out of those signals. What do you suppose he means?”
“He don’t mean anything. He’s just playing.”
“Well, if he’d just signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and wait, or go north, or go south, or go to hell–there would be some reason in it. But look at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat revolving like a wheel. The ass!”
“There come more people.”
“Now there’s quite a mob. Look! Isn’t that a boat?”
“Where? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that’s no boat.”
“That fellow is still waving his coat.”
“He must think we like to see him do that. Why don’t he quit it. It don’t mean anything.”
“I don’t know. I think he is trying to make us go north. It must be that there’s a life-saving station there somewhere.”
“Say, he ain’t tired yet. Look at ‘im wave.”
“Wonder how long he can keep that up. He’s been revolving his coat ever since he caught sight of us. He’s an idiot. Why aren’t they getting men to bring a boat out. A fishing boat–one of those big yawls–could come out here all right. Why don’t he do something?”
“Oh, it’s all right, now.”
“They’ll have a boat out here for us in less than no time, now that they’ve seen us.”
A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low land. The shadows on the sea slowly deepened. The wind bore coldness with it, and the men began to shiver.
“Holy smoke!” said one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood, “if we keep on monkeying out here! If we’ve got to flounder out here all night!”
“Oh, we’ll never have to stay here all night! Don’t you worry. They’ve seen us now, and it won’t be long before they’ll come chasing out after us.”
The shore grew dusky. The man waving a coat blended gradually into this gloom, and it swallowed in the same manner the omnibus and the group of people. The spray, when it dashed uproariously over the side, made the voyagers shrink and swear like men who were being branded.