The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A nor'west wind filled the schooner's sails, a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.
“We're off,” muttered Wilbur, as the “Bertha Millner” heeled to the first gust.
But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.
“Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then,” hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's forefoot. “Maybe they're going after hay or wheat.”
The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when—
“Stand by for stays,” came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came about. Then the “Bertha Millner” caught the wind again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water roughened with white-caps.
“Stand by for stays.”
Once again as the rudder went hard over, the “Bertha Millner” fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straight toward the Presidio.
“We'll come about again soon,” Wilbur told himself, “and stand over toward the Contra Costa shore.”
A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled it on the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept her course. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.