THE RACE
It was dawn of a heavy, dark day. There was a mighty sea rolling and a forty-mile wind off the Cape shore that promised a three-day ruction. The Charming Lass at her anchor reared and plunged like a nervous horse.
Weighty with fish, she struggled heroically up the great walls of water, only to plump her sharp bows into the hollow with a force that half buried her. Between times she wriggled and capered like a dancing elephant and jerked at her cable until it seemed as though she would take her windlass out.
In the midst of all this Code Schofield struggled aft and began hauling forth the mains’l that at the first edge of the Bank had been relegated in favor of the triangular riding sail.
Pete Ellinwood saw him, and in a great voice bawled down the hatchway to the fo’c’s’le.
“Salt’s wet, boys; the skipper’s haulin’ out the mains’l!” At which there broke forth the most extravagant sounds of jubilation and all hands tumbled up to help bend it on.
The crew of the Lass did not know it, but Bijonah Tanner and the Rosan had actually been gone twelve hours, having stolen away from the fleet before dressing down the night before when darkness had fallen. And so successfully had Jed Martin stolen Bijonah’s thunder that he had left but three hours later––when the fish had been dressed.
Schofield was honest with himself, and he waited until morning to see if the great stacks of fish would not settle enough to allow of another day’s work to be crowded in. But when he saw that space above the fish was very small he waited no longer.
Four men heaved on the windlass brakes, and the others got sail on her as fast as they could haul halyards. She started under jib, jumbo, fore and mains’l, with the wind a little on her port quarter and every fiber of her yearning to go.