Appleby was at the rail, and saw for a moment the straining bodies swing with the thrashing oars and the white upturned faces, as the schooner rushed by the boat. A great wreath of foam frothed about her as she swung over the top of a sea, but in another second she had passed astern, and every man on board the Champlain became busy when Jordan raised his hand. Down went the helm, in came the long boom, there was a great rattle of blocks and banging of canvas, and as the schooner swept round a voice rang through the din.
"Get a holt of them. Up gaff topsail and jib while she's shaking!"
Appleby, as it happened, was at the topsail halliard, and could see very little as they ran the sail up. He, however, knew the schooner had run to leeward of the boat, and now when she lay to, he had a momentary glimpse of the Russians. They were flying towards her with the boat hove up on the back of a sea, but the Champlain rolled heavily and he lost sight of her. In another moment or two there was a thud and a shouting beneath him to lee, and struggling with the topsail tack, he could dimly see black figures leaning down through the shrouds and apparently clutching at something in the sea. Then bedraggled objects came scrambling over the rail, and Montreal was whirling the wheel round while something drove away astern.
"They're here. Haul staysail," said Jordan.
It had taken less than a minute, and now the Champlain, heaving her bows out of a seatop, was going on again nobody seemed to consider that they had done anything unusual, though it was evident that it might still cost them very dearly. The reefs were waiting close astern, there was also an ominous spouting in front of them, and black seas that had grown steeper came seething out of the dimness to weather. The schooner was hove down by her canvas until the lads could scarcely stand upon her deck, but she must carry the last inch of it if she was to beat off shore.
On she went, deluging her jibs at every plunge and drenching her foresail half-way up, until the reef was close ahead, and Jordan signed with his hand. Then with canvas banging she swept round head to wind, and, while the men, who needed no telling, grasped the jib-sheets, hung there a few breathless moments, for everybody on board her knew that if she would not stay, or come round on the other tack, she would be on the reef in another minute. Appleby cast one brief glance at the tumultuous spouting and chaos of crumbling seas, and then turned his eyes away, for he had seen rather more than was good for him.
"Let draw staysail. Lee-sheets," said somebody, and she was coming round with them.
Dripping men grabbed at the ropes, there was a banging of canvas, and she was thrashing out on the other tack when Jordan, turning to the blue-eyed officer, held out his hand.
"It's kind of fortunate we came along just then. I'll fix you up by and by," he said.
There was still just enough light to see by, and Appleby afterwards remembered the cloud of spray that blew into the foresail, the white seething of the reefs, and the two figures beneath the drenched canvas on the Champlain's deck. The Russian stood erect in his wet uniform, Jordan swaying a little, uncouth and ungainly in his spray-wet canvas and greasy furs, but the two shook hands as men and equals, and Appleby dimly realized that a great deal was implied by that grasp. One was, up there, an outlaw, the other an officer of the Tsar, but the likeness between them was greater than the difference of race, and Appleby commenced to understand things he had heard and read that had once been incomprehensible to him. Men, it seemed, were much the same wherever they came from, and neither varying speech nor colour could make them less than men, while the pride that set the nations at each others' throats was an evil thing. Then there flashed into his memory lines he had once been made to learn, and had straightway forgotten, "When the battle flags are furled."