When the Holker struck the channel the ebb-tide was setting out, and, instead of driving fast ahead, the Holker seemed to hold up and simply rise and fall on the choppy seas.
The hearts of all were in their throats, for now the Roebuck loomed up and everybody saw the Englishman luff and a broadside belched forth at the struggling Holker. Down came her main-topsail, but as long as her head-sails hung out she could keep before the gale, and try to weather the bar.
The frigate was desperately near; another raking broadside might take the Holker’s foremast, and then she would be a helpless wreck at the mercy of the breakers.
But the smoke hid the Holker from the frigate for an instant, and the valiant Risk held his ship right upon the bar. As a huge surge came athwart the quarter to throw the brig upon the sands, the skipper put the wheel hard up. The ship at once broached to on the crest of a wicked sea and rolled on her beams’ ends. As the keel scraped on the bar a burly seaman grasped the wheel with the captain, and by wonderful dexterity the rudder was put hard over. The next surge saw the Holker right herself before the wind and launch safely in the still water beyond the bar.
When the Holker accomplished this daring feat of seamanship, the crew of the Roebuck were so thrilled that they let out a lusty cheer for the Yankee and bore off into the blue water to ride out the gale.
Now that the Holker was speeding in smooth water to a safe anchorage, the crew were clearing away the wreckage and admiring the little captain, who had saved them again from the horrors of an English prison.
CHAPTER XXIV
When the Holker made the inlet at Little Egg Harbor, she came to an anchorage behind one of the low-lying islands. Her only chances for an escape were a high tide and darkness, or a fog that would let her slip out and pass the Roebuck. If a boarding party from the English frigate did not attack him, Captain Risk was preparing his ship for a chance to escape. There was much to keep his crew busy, for he had rigging to overhaul and spars to mend.