Frank scrambled over the centreboard case and bumped down on the floor boards on the windward side of the boat Priscilla pushed over the tiller and began to haul vigorously on the main sheet. The Tortoise swept round, heeled over and rushed through the water on a broad reach. The wind, so it seemed to Frank, began to blow much harder than before. He clung to the weather stay and watched the bubbling water tear past within an inch or two of the lower gunwale. A sudden spasm of extreme nervousness seized him. He looked anxiously at Priscilla. She seemed to be entirely calm and self-possessed. His self-respect reasserted itself. He remembered that she was merely a girl. He set his teeth and determined to show no sign of fear. Gradually the exhilaration of the motion, the coolness of the breeze through his hair, the dancing, impulsive rush of the boat, and the shining white of the sail in front of him conquered his qualms. He began to enjoy himself as he had never in his life enjoyed himself before.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “this is fine.”
“Topping,” said Priscilla.
The feel of the cricket ball caught clean in the centre of the bat, sent in one clear flight to square leg across the boundary line, is glorious. Frank knew the exultation of such moments. The dash across the goal line from a swiftly taken pass is a thing to live for. Frank, as a fast three-quarter back, knew that too. But this tearing of a heeling boat through bubbling green water became to him, when he got over the first terror of it, a delirious joy.
“That’s Inishminna ahead of us to windward,” said Priscilla. “Flanagan lives there, who hired him the old boat. He might be there, but he isn’t. I can see the whole slope of the island. We’ll slip under the lee of the end of it past Illaunglos. It’s a likely enough island.”
Frank suddenly remembered that they were in pursuit of a German spy. The remainder of his scepticism forsook him. Amid such surroundings, with the singing of the wind and the gurgling swish of the flying boat in his ears, any adventure seemed possible. The prosaic limitations of ordinary life dropped off from him. Only it seemed a pity to find the spy, since finding him would stop their sailing.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said. “Don’t let us bother about the old spy. Let’s go on sailing.”
“Just hunker down a bit,” said Priscilla, “and look under the foot of the sail. I can’t see to leeward. Is there anything like a tent on that island?”
Frank curled himself into a cramped and difficult attitude. He peered under the sail and made his report.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, “except three bullocks. But I can only see two sides of the island.”