“Where will that be?” I said, wondering whether he meant the very worst; and I breathed more freely as I heard his answer.
“In the hospital, lad, in the hospital. They’ll have to mend the crack in his head, for I dessay your mate here hit as hard as he could.”
“I did,” said Esau.
And now we sat in silence gazing at the moonlit water, with its wonderful flecks of silvery ripple, then at the misty schooner, and then across at the lights of the city; while I wondered at the fact that one could go on sailing so long, and that the distance looked so small, for a mile at sea seemed to be a mere sham.
“What do yew say now?” said the master an hour later. “Shall we overhaul her?”
“Yes, we must catch her now,” said Gunson, excitedly. “Don’t overdo it when we are so near success.”
“Yew let me alone; yew let me be,” he grumbled. “I’m going to putt yew aboard that craft, first, because I think yew all ought to be helped; and second, because I want to show the schooner’s skipper that he arn’t everybody on these shores.”
On we went through the silver water, with the path behind us looking like molten metal, and the wind seeming to hiss by us and rattle in the boat’s sails, we went so fast. Every now and then from where I sat I could look down and see that the lee bulwark almost dipped under water, but always when it was within apparently half an inch of the surface the master eased the boat and it rose a little.
The schooner was going on the opposite tack to ours, so that when at last we crossed her we seemed so near that one might have hailed; but in obedience to the master’s wish we passed on in silence, so as to let him enjoy the triumph of over-sailing the bigger vessel, and then hailing her after the Cornwall fashion of which he had boasted.
“Now,” he said, “we’re ahead.” And almost at that moment there was a loud crack, the mast went by the thwarts, and the sails lay like the wings of a wounded bird upon the silvery sea.