“Port your helm!” commanded the pilot calmly.  “Slow ahead!” Old Captain Price rang for him and they began to draw out.  Ashore the wedding guests were a flutter of waving handkerchiefs and hats.  They thanked God Minnie was not on the bridge.  At the rail, Arthur lolled stupidly and seemed to be fighting down a nausea.

“Steady!” came the sure voice of the pilot.  “Steady as you go!  Stop her!”

Arthur Price slipped then and came to his knees.  Ashore, the party was cheering.

“Up with you, Arthur,” cried the old man in an agony.  “Them people’s looking.  Stiffen up, my boy.”

“Half speed ahead!” droned the pilot, never turning his head.

The old man rattled the handle over and stooped to his son.

“You can lie down when you turn her over to the mate,” he said grimly.  “Till then you’ll stand up and show yourself, if your feet perish under you.  I’ll hold you.”

They were drawing round a tier of big vessels, going cautiously, not with the speed and knife-edge accuracy with which the old man had been wont to take her out, but groping safely through the craft about them.  Arthur swayed and smiled and slackened, his head nodding as though in response to the friends on the dock who never abated their farewell clamor.  The grip on his arm held him up, for he had weakened on his drink, as excitable men will.

“Starboard!” ordered the pilot, and Captain Price half turned to pass the word.  It was then that it happened.  The drunken man pivoted where he stood and stumbled sideways, catching himself on the telegraph.  The old man snatched him upright, for his knees were melting under him, and from below there came the clang of the bell.  Arthur Price had pulled the handle over.  Forthwith she quickened; she drove ahead for the stern of the ship she was being conned to clear; her prow was aimed at it, like a descending sword.

“Hard a-port!” roared the pilot, jumping back to bellow to the wheel.  “Spin her round, sheer over with her!” The wheel engine set up its clatter; with a savage wrench the old Captain shook his son to steadiness for an instant and lifted his eyes to see the Burdock charging to disaster.

“Stop her!” cried the pilot.  “Full astern!” Captain Price tightened his grip on his son’s arm and reached for the handle with his other hand.

Clang! clang! went the deep-toned bell below, and swoosh went the reversed propeller.  The pilot’s orders rattled like hail on a roof; she came round, and old Captain Price had a glimpse of a knot of frantic men at the taff-rail of the ship they barely cleared.  Then, slowly they wedged her into the lock-mouth and hauled in.

“Close thing!” said the pilot, panting a little.

The old man let his son lean against the rail, and turned-to him.

“P’raps not,” he said.  “Pilot, what did I ring them engines with?” The other stared.  “I had a hold of him with this hand of mine; I reached for the handle with my—­other—­hand.”