For a short distance the yacht drifted astern, and then, as the pressure of the jib began to make itself felt, her head gradually payed off. “Haul in the try-sail and jib-sheets. Let go the weather-sheet, Dick, and haul in the other. That is it, now she begins to move again.”
“You are only just in time,” the captain said to Tom; “she was just beginning to part in the middle when I left. You have saved all our lives, and I thank you heartily.”
“This is the owner of the yacht, sir,” Tom said, motioning to Horace. “It is his doing that we came out.”
“Oh, that is all nonsense, Tom! You would have come just the same if I hadn’t been there.”
“Well, sir, it has been a gallant rescue,” the captain said. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw your sail coming after us, and I expected every moment to see it disappear.”
“Now, captain,” Tom said, “make all your men sit down as close as they can pack under the weather bulwark; we ain’t in yet.”
It was an anxious time as they struggled through the heavy sea on the way back, but the Surf stood it bravely, and the weight to windward enabled her to stand up more stiffly to her canvas. When they were abreast of the port half the men went over to the other side, the helm was put up, and she rushed towards the shore dead before the wind. The extra weight on deck told on her now, and it needed the most careful steering on Tom’s part to keep her straight before the waves, several of which broke over her taffrail and swept along the deck, one of them bursting out her bulwarks at the bow.
“Get ready to haul in the sheets smartly,” Tom shouted as they neared the pier.
He kept her course close to the pier-head, and as the Surf came abreast of it jammed down the tiller, while Ben and Dick hauled in the mizzen-sheet. A moment later she was shooting along under the shelter of the wall, while a loud shout of welcome rose above the howling of the wind from those on shore.
“Now, sir, I will see about getting her moored,” Tom said, “if you will run down and get some rum bottles out of the locker; I am pretty well frozen and these poor fellows must be nigh perished, but it would never have done to open the hatchway in that sea.”