“Yes, it was horrible,” said Rodd, with a sigh of relief. “But what would have happened if we had missed the mouth and gone ashore?”
“Why, what does happen, my lad, when a ship does that? Bumps, and a sale arterwards of new-wrecked timber on the beach. But here we are all right, and instead of being ashamed of ourselves we can look the mounseers full in the face and tell ’em that if they can manage a better bit of seamanship than the skipper, they had better go and show us how.”
Joe Cross said no more, for Captain Chubb was roaring orders through a speaking trumpet, the last bit of canvas was lowered down, and before long the schooner was safely moored in the outer harbour as far away as she could safely get from the vessels that had taken refuge before them, some of them grinding together and damaging their paint and wood, in spite of their busy crews hard at work with fenders and striving to get into safer quarters, notwithstanding the efforts of the heavy gusts which came bearing down from time to time.
The nearest vessel was a handsome-looking brig which they had passed as they glided in, noting that she was moored head to wind to a heavy buoy. As they passed her to run nearer into shelter Rodd had noticed the name upon her stern, the Jeanne d’Arc, which suggested immediately the patriotic Maid of Orleans.
He had forgotten it the next moment, the name being merged with the thought that while the schooner had had so narrow an escape of ending her voyage, the brig had been lying snugly moored to the buoy. But now as they glided on it became evident that the brig had broken adrift, for all at once, as she lay rolling and jerking at her mooring cable, the distance between her bows and the huge ringed cask seemed to have grown greater, and from where Rodd stood he could see the glistening tarpaulins of her crew as they hurried forward in a cluster, and Captain Chubb bellowed an order from where he stood astern, to his men.
“Aren’t coming aboard of us, are they?” thought Rodd, as, heard above the wind during a comparative lull, Captain Chubb was roaring out fresh orders to his crew; for he had fully grasped the danger, and the men were ready to slip their cable moorings and glide farther in under bare poles.
But fortunately this fresh disaster did not come to pass, for as the brig bore down upon them there was a rush and splash from her bows, an anchor went down, checking her progress a little, then a little more, as she still came on nearer as if to come crash into the schooner’s bows, and Captain Chubb raised his speaking trumpet to his lips to bid his men let go, prior to ordering them to stand by ready to lower their own anchor in turn when at a safe distance, when the brig’s progress received a sudden check, her anchor held, and she was brought up short not many yards away.
“Smart,” said Captain Chubb, “for a mounseer;” and he looked at Rodd as he spoke, before tucking his speaking trumpet under his arm and then giving himself a shake like a huge yellow Newfoundland dog to get rid of the superabundant moisture. “Well, squire,” he continued, as he came close up, “what should you do next?”
Rodd looked at him as if puzzled by the question. Then putting his hands to his mouth he shouted back—
“I should get farther into the harbour, in case that brig broke away again.”