“Are you going to come about, Tom?”
“Not yet, sir; we must get more sea-room before we try. Like enough she may miss stays in this sea. If she does we must wear her round.”
“Now we will try,” he said five minutes later. “Get those lashings off. Mr. Horace, you will have to go up to the other side when she is round. Get ready to go about!” he shouted. “I will put the helm down at the first lull. Now!”
The Surf came round like a top, and had gathered way on the other tack before the next big wave struck her.
“Well done!” Tom Burdett shouted joyously, and the others echoed the shout. In ten minutes they were far enough out to get a sight of the ship as they rose on the waves.
“Just as I thought,” Ben muttered; “he thinks he will weather Ram’s Head, and he will go ashore somewhere on that reef of rocks to a certainty.”
In another five minutes the course was again changed, and the Surf bore directly for the barque. In spite of the small sail she carried the water was two feet up the lee planks of her deck, and she was deluged every time by the seas, which struck her now almost abeam. But everything was battened down, and they heeded the water but little.
“What do you think of her now?” Tom shouted to his brother-in-law. “Didn’t I tell you she would stand a sea when your fishing-boats dare not show their noses out of the port?”
“She is a good ’un and no mistake, Tom. I did not think a craft her size could have lived in such a sea as this. You may brag about her as you like in future, and there ain’t a man in Seaport as will contradict you.”
They were going through the water four feet to the barque’s one, and they were but a quarter of a mile astern of her when Horace exclaimed, “She has struck!” and at the same moment her main and foremast went over the side.