Unwittingly we had made friends with the master of the little fishing
craft and his men; and as we sat watching them in the moonlight, and
looking away at the schooner, which always stood out in the distance
faint and misty, as if some thing of shadow instead of real, a spar was
got out from where it was lashed below the thwarts, and run out over the
bows, a bolt or two holding it in its place, while the stays were made
fast to the masthead and the sides of the boat. Then a large red sail
was drawn out of the locker forward, bent on, run up, and the boat
heeled over more and more.
"Don't capsize us," said Gunson. "Can she bear all that sail?"
"Ay, and more too. If we capsized yew we should capsize ourselves too,
and what's more, our missuses at home, and that wouldn't do. We won't
capsize yew. Only sit well up to the side, and don't mind a sprinkle of
water now and then. I'm going to make the old girl fly."
He chuckled as he saw the difference the fresh spread of canvas had made
in the boat's progress, and, taking the tiller now himself, he seemed to
send the light craft skimming over the sea, and leaving an ever-widening
path of foam glittering in the moonlight behind.
"That's different, my lads, eh?" the master said, with a fresh chuckle.
"Yew see yew were only kind o' passengers before--so many dollar
passengers; now yew're kind o' friends as we wants to oblige, while
we're cutting yonder skipper's comb for him. Say, do yew know what they
do in Cornwall in England? I'll tell yew. When they want to make a
skipper wild who's precious proud of his craft, they hystes up a bit
more sail, runs by him, and then goes aft and holds out a rope's end,
and asks him if they shall give him a tow. That's what I'm going to do
to the schooner's skipper, so don't you fret no more. You hold tight,
and you shall be aboard some time."
"I hope we shall," said Gunson quietly; but I could feel that there was
doubt in his tones, and as I looked at the shadowy image away there in
the offing, the case seemed very hopeless indeed.
We had been sailing for some time now, but the distance from the city
was not very great, the wind not having been favourable. Consequently
our course had been a series of tacks to and fro, like the zigzags of a
mountain road. Still we had this on our side--the schooner had to shape
her course in the same way, and suffer from the constant little
succession of calms as we did.
The confident tone of our skipper was encouraging, but we could not feel
very sure when we saw from time to time that the schooner was evidently
leaving us behind. But we had not calculated on our man's nautical
knowledge, for as we got further out he began to manoeuvre so as to make
shorter tacks, and at last, when the moon was rising high in the
heavens, and we were getting well out from under the influence of the
land, the easy way in which the course of the boat could be changed gave
us a great advantage, and towards midnight our hopes rose high.
"There," said our skipper, "what do yew say now? That's a little craft
to move, ain't she?"
"Move? she flies," said Gunson; "but with this wind, arn't you carrying
too much sail?"
"Not enough," said the skipper gruffly. "You let me alone. Only thing
that can hurt us is a spar going, and they won't do that. That there
mast and bowsprit both came from up where you're going--Vancouver
Island. There's some fine sticks of timber up there."
We eased off the way of the boat a little, for water was lapping over
the bows, and even he had tacitly agreed that we were heeling over more
than was quite safe.
"Swab that drop o' juice up," he growled; and one of the men quietly
mopped up the water, of which there was not enough to bale.
"She must see us now," said Gunson, after another long interval, during
which we all sat holding on by the gunwale.
"See us? Oh, she sees us plain enough."
"Then why doesn't she heave to?"
"Skipper's too obstint. Perhaps he don't think there's any one aboard,
for it's misty to make anything out in the moonlight, even with a glass.
P'r'aps he knows the boat again, and won't take no heed because it's
me. But you wait a bit; we're going through the water free now, eh,
squire?"
"You'll sink her directly," said Esau, who had already grasped the fact
that a vessel was always "she."
"Not I. I say, you didn't expect a ride like this t'night, did yew?"
"No," said Esau, whose attention was all taken up with holding on to the
side.
"No, not yew. Steady, my lass, steady," he said softly, as the boat
made a plunge or two. "Don't kick. Say, youngster, any message for
that there chap as you hit?"
"Yes; tell him I'll set the police to work if ever I come back here."
"Right. I'll tell him. I know where to find him."
"Where will that be?" I said, wondering whether he meant the very
worst; and I breathed more freely as I heard his answer.
"In the hospital, lad, in the hospital. They'll have to mend the crack
in his head, for I dessay your mate here hit as hard as he could."
"I did," said Esau.
And now we sat in silence gazing at the moonlit water, with its
wonderful flecks of silvery ripple, then at the misty schooner, and then
across at the lights of the city; while I wondered at the fact that one
could go on sailing so long, and that the distance looked so small, for
a mile at sea seemed to be a mere sham.
"What do yew say now?" said the master an hour later. "Shall we
overhaul her?"
"Yes, we must catch her now," said Gunson, excitedly. "Don't overdo it
when we are so near success."
"Yew let me alone; yew let me be," he grumbled. "I'm going to putt yew
aboard that craft, first, because I think yew all ought to be helped;
and second, because I want to show the schooner's skipper that he arn't
everybody on these shores."
On we went through the silver water, with the path behind us looking
like molten metal, and the wind seeming to hiss by us and rattle in the
boat's sails, we went so fast. Every now and then from where I sat I
could look down and see that the lee bulwark almost dipped under water,
but always when it was within apparently half an inch of the surface the
master eased the boat and it rose a little.
The schooner was going on the opposite tack to ours, so that when at
last we crossed her we seemed so near that one might have hailed; but in
obedience to the master's wish we passed on in silence, so as to let him
enjoy the triumph of over-sailing the bigger vessel, and then hailing
her after the Cornwall fashion of which he had boasted.
"Now," he said, "we're ahead." And almost at that moment there was a
loud crack, the mast went by the thwarts, and the sails lay like the
wings of a wounded bird upon the silvery sea.