He shipped one oar, back-paddled with the other, and turned the dory broadside to Double Eagle. Eliot stood in the bow, reached up, and made them fast to a midship cleat; then he climbed aboard the schooner, Drew following. Nathaniel tossed the sea bags to them, passed up the supplies and stores and the sack containing Trajan; then, with his shoes laced around his neck, he stretched a leg over the space between the two vessels. As he went to spring off his back leg, the dory swung out unexpectedly, widening the gap, and he found himself momentarily spread-eagled unevenly over the water, the toes of his back foot just touching the thwart while his left foot, higher up, clung to the schooner. He would have been dunked if he hadn’t grabbed the main shroud and pulled himself to safety at the last second, but the violence of the movement caused the knot in his laces to slip and both shoes to fall in. They drifted on the tide, an arm’s length from the dory. His father only had to reach out to retrieve them, but all he did was stand and stare perplexed, as if the two objects floating by were some species of seabird or fish he had never seen before. Nathaniel leapt back into the smaller boat, rocking it and upsetting Cyrus’s balance. For one perilous instant, it looked as if he would go overboard, but with a flailing of his arms, he managed to throw himself forward onto the bow thwart.

No wrath or sadness on his face now; nor color, either. If Cyrus had no fear of being on the water in any condition, be it doldrums or bare poles hurricane, he had a terror of being in it, for like many old-time sailors, he’d never learned to swim.

Nathaniel had meanwhile grabbed an oar. Leaning far over the transom, he slipped the blade under one shoe and scooped it up. Its mate floated out of reach and sank before he had time to cast off and pull after it—the only shoes he had for the trip besides his sea boots, which were hot and clumsy and of no use except on deck in foul weather.