A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

"She cannot jibe," said Bertric. "See, her yard is braced square for running, and cannot shift. If all holds, she must run till doomsday thus. Her mast may go in a squall, or one of the braces may part--but I don't see what else is to stop her."

But the wind was light, and hardly strained the new rigging, while there was a stout running backstay set up with all care, and even the main halliard had been led far aft to serve as another. She was meant to run while she might, and that silent and lonely ship, passing us on an endless voyage into the great westward ocean, was as strange and uncanny a sight as a seaman could meet in a long life. Moreover, though she was in full war trim, she seemed to have some deck cargo piled amidships, which might be plunder.

So for an hour or more that chase went on. Once or twice we were a full half-mile astern of her, and then gained with the chance of the breeze. Once we might have thrown a line on board her, but had none to heave. Then she gathered way and fled from us, even as we thought we had her. It was just as if she knew that we chased her, and would play with us. We almost lost heart at that time, for it was sickening.

"The ship is bewitched," said Dalfin, and in truth we agreed with him.

Why, and by whom, she had been set adrift thus, or what had befallen her crew, we could not guess. Still, she was our only hope, and we held on after her again. Neither Bertric nor myself had the least thought of giving up, for we knew that the chances of the breeze were all in our favour, so long as it came unsteadily as now. And always, when it fell, we sculled fiercely and gained on her, if only a little.

So another half hour passed, with its hopes and disappointments, and then we were flying down on her with a breeze of our own, when the end came. The wind shifted and I met it, and that shift did all for us. It reached the ship, and took the clew of the sail inboard, shaking and thundering, while the sheets lashed to and fro across the deck. Then somewhere those sheets jammed and held fast, and as if the canvas had been flattened in of set purpose, she luffed, until with a great clap of the sail against the mast, the whole of her upper canvas was aback, and she was hove to helplessly. Maybe she was a furlong from us at the moment, and Bertric shouted.

"We have her," I cried, "if only all holds!"

"She will gather stern way directly," said Bertric, with set teeth. "Then she will fall off again, and the sheets will get adrift."

We flew down on her, but we had been tricked so often before that we hardly dared to hope. Now we were close to her bows, and we heard the great yard creaking and straining, and the dull flapping of the loose canvas of both tack and clew which had blown inboard. The ship lurched and staggered under the uneasy strain, but the tackle held, and we had her. Bertric went to our halliards and lowered the sail as I luffed alongside, and then Dalfin had gripped the rail between two of the shining shields. There was no sea beyond a harmless ripple as yet, and we dropped aft to where a cleat was set for the boats on her quarter, and made fast.

Then as we looked at one another, there came to me as it were a breath from my lost home in far-off Caithness, for a whiff of peat smoke hung round us and was gone so quickly that I thought it almost fancy. But Dalfin had smelt it also.