Mainsail and foresail took the wind at last. And what a mainsail it was, after the canvas of the Wear Jack, dirty as a dishcloth and patched where a pilot mark had once been. And what sticks after the spars of the Jack, from the main boom, that had seen better days, to the gaff, with its wooden jaws bound to creak like a four-post bedstead!
“Now the winch,” cried Hank. “Clap on to the winch and roust her out.”
He took the wheel, whilst Jake, Tommie and Bud clapped on to the winch, and, as he stood listening to the music of the chain coming in, he cast his eyes away towards the south horn of the bay where the McGinnis crew could be seen moving slowly now towards the bay beyond, followed by the Mexicans, evidently half-beaten, but still doggedly in pursuit.
“She’s out of the mud!” cried George.
Hank turned the spokes of the wheel, and the Heart, with all her canvas thrashing, took the wind, got steerage way on her, and, as the anchor came home, lay over on the starboard tack.
She had been anchored to north of the break in the reefs and this course would take her diagonally through the break.
Hank, who had bitten off a piece of plug tobacco, stood, working his lantern jaws as he steered. Gulls raced them as they went and the breeze strengthened up, whilst block, spar and cordage creaked to the boost of the waves and the slap of the bow wash. They passed the horn of the northern reef by a short ten yards, the out-going tide and the south-running current foaming round the rocks like destruction gnashing at them. Then, lifting her bowsprit, the Heart took the great sea, dipping and rising again to the steadily marching swell.
Hank held on. The wind was breezing up strong from the southwest and he was keeping her close hauled. A few miles out, with Mexico a cloud on the sea line and the reefs a memory, he spun the wheel and laid her on a due westerly course.
He called Jake.
“You can steer?”