He thought a minute and then turned to hurry awkwardly down the path toward the wharf.
“We’ll take my catboat,” he said; “she’s not been sailed for a month of Sundays but she’s seaworthy all right. The Josephine may have the start of us while we’re getting up sail, but we’ll catch her in the end.”
It was wonderful what short work the old captain made of seizing upon a dory, rowing out to the little catboat that bobbed in the tide, boarding her and getting up sail. Billy’s assistance was willing but extremely awkward, so that he hindered far more than he helped. At length, however, they were under weigh, riding gaily the gradually rising waves, and skimming along in the wake of the fleeing Josephine.
Captain Saulsby’s burst of energy seemed to wear itself out with surprising quickness. Once they were well started he put the tiller into Billy’s hand and went and sat down in the cockpit.
“I’m an old man,” he said gloomily. “I’m not a sailor any longer, just an old man, and good for nothing.”
Billy hardly heard him, so intent was he upon the responsibility of steering the boat. She was a clumsy little craft with a rather daring expanse of sail, she cut through the water swiftly but was not easy to keep upon her course. The tiller jerked and kicked under his hand; there were times when he could scarcely hold it, and when the bow veered threateningly to one side or another. The Captain paid little attention to his difficulties but sat hunched up in his corner staring idly before him.
“There’s a shoal place here off the headland,” he remarked at last; “you’ll have to make two or three tacks to get around it. That pesky Josephine can sail right over and will get more of a start than ever. If the tide were half an hour higher I would risk following. Now we’ve come so far we’ve got to get her.”
“But—but—what do I do?” inquired Billy, quite bewildered at the task set him. A boy who has never sailed a boat before finds suddenly a whole world of things that he would like to know.
“Why, nothing but just come up into the wind, loose the sheet, lay your new course over toward the lighthouse there. Now’s the minute—Ready about!”
Somehow, Billy never quite knew how, the thing was done. The bow swung round, the big sail fluttered and trembled a moment, then came over with a rush, and the catboat was off on her new tack. To Billy it seemed as though the wind had totally changed in direction, as though the small vessel were tipping dangerously, and as though anything might happen at any moment, but he kept manfully silent about it all. If this was the way one learned to sail a boat, he supposed that he could master it as well as another.