The lugger had a good many men on board as she lay out there, quite three hundred yards away, though it had seemed only one from high up in the Gap, and the cutter was quite half a mile from where we stood, and more to the east.
All at once Bigley lifted up both his arms, and stood with them outstretched for quite a minute.
“What are you doing that for?” I said.
He made no answer but remained in the same position, and kept so while I watched the boat rising and falling on the heaving tide, with every one distinctly visible in the evening sun.
As I have said the lugger lay with her bows straight towards the Gap; but all of a sudden she began to change her position, the bows swinging slowly round, and I realised that the rope by which she had swung had been cast off, for the buoy was plainly to be seen now several fathoms away.
Just then I saw old Jonas start up in the bows of the boat and clap his hands to his mouth, his voice coming clearly to us over the wave.
“You, Bill! You’re adrift! Lower down that foresail, you swab, lower down that foresail! Throw her up in the wind!”
This sail had begun to fill, but a man ran to the tiller, and the lugger’s position changed slowly, the sails flapping and the bows pointing gradually in our direction again.
All this while the men in the cutter’s gig were pulling with all their might, and rapidly shortened the distance, till the bow man picked up a boat-hook, and stood ready to hold on.
It was all so clear against the black side of the lugger, that we missed nothing, and to my surprise, I saw old Jonas draw back as if to let the bow man pass him, and then there was a tremendous splash, the bow man was overboard, and old Jonas had made a leap driving the light gig away with his feet, catching the side of the lugger, and swinging himself aboard.