“It’s her beams helping her. Try her on a wind and we’d knock flinders out of her. Lord! to think of being beat by that old cod boat! Say, cayn’t we do nothin’, crack on a balloon jib or somethin’?”
Satan laughed a mirthless laugh.
“S’much as to tell the cuss we’re beat. Don’t you think Cleary’s got no balloon jibs up his sleeve? Hain’t you no sense?”
They held on, the Natchez steadily overhauling them till she was dead level half a mile away and drawing ahead.
Then, having demonstrated her superiority, she began to reduce sail so as to give the Sarah the lead.
Jude turned away and leaned with her back against the rail; then Satan told her to take the wheel and went below for a “wash.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE STEERSMAN
Ratcliffe, taking his seat on the bottom of the dinghy, watched her as she steered, the old panama on the back of her head and her eyes roving from the binnacle to the luff of the mainsail. The following wind blew warm, and the gentle creak of a block, the slash of the bow-wash, and the occasional click of the rudder chain were the only sounds in all the blue world ringing them.