He chuckled as he saw the difference the fresh spread of canvas had made in the boat’s progress, and, taking the tiller now himself, he seemed to send the light craft skimming over the sea, and leaving an ever-widening path of foam glittering in the moonlight behind.
“That’s different, my lads, eh?” the master said, with a fresh chuckle. “Yew see yew were only kind o’ passengers before—so many dollar passengers; now yew’re kind o’ friends as we wants to oblige, while we’re cutting yonder skipper’s comb for him. Say, do yew know what they do in Cornwall in England? I’ll tell yew. When they want to make a skipper wild who’s precious proud of his craft, they hystes up a bit more sail, runs by him, and then goes aft and holds out a rope’s end, and asks him if they shall give him a tow. That’s what I’m going to do to the schooner’s skipper, so don’t you fret no more. You hold tight, and you shall be aboard some time.”
“I hope we shall,” said Gunson quietly; but I could feel that there was doubt in his tones, and as I looked at the shadowy image away there in the offing, the case seemed very hopeless indeed.
We had been sailing for some time now, but the distance from the city was not very great, the wind not having been favourable. Consequently our course had been a series of tacks to and fro, like the zigzags of a mountain road. Still we had this on our side—the schooner had to shape her course in the same way, and suffer from the constant little succession of calms as we did.
The confident tone of our skipper was encouraging, but we could not feel very sure when we saw from time to time that the schooner was evidently leaving us behind. But we had not calculated on our man’s nautical knowledge, for as we got further out he began to manoeuvre so as to make shorter tacks, and at last, when the moon was rising high in the heavens, and we were getting well out from under the influence of the land, the easy way in which the course of the boat could be changed gave us a great advantage, and towards midnight our hopes rose high.
“There,” said our skipper, “what do yew say now? That’s a little craft to move, ain’t she?”
“Move? she flies,” said Gunson; “but with this wind, arn’t you carrying too much sail?”
“Not enough,” said the skipper gruffly. “You let me alone. Only thing that can hurt us is a spar going, and they won’t do that. That there mast and bowsprit both came from up where you’re going—Vancouver Island. There’s some fine sticks of timber up there.”
We eased off the way of the boat a little, for water was lapping over the bows, and even he had tacitly agreed that we were heeling over more than was quite safe.
“Swab that drop o’ juice up,” he growled; and one of the men quietly mopped up the water, of which there was not enough to bale.