Appleby let the sheet fly, and scrambled forward, and in another moment the flapping sail fell into the boat.
Then while the gig lurched perilously and they struggled to get the oars out a shadowy blur of thrashing canvas swept past them and stopped close ahead. After that he only remembered rowing savagely until a low dark hull that plunged and rolled swayed down upon the boat and smote her heavily. A man sprang down apparently with a rope, another leaning over the bulwarks clutched Niven and dragged him up, and Appleby, who did not quite know how he got there, found himself standing on a little schooner's deck. Somebody was speaking close beside him.
"She's twenty feet, anyway, and there's nowhere we could stow her."
"Then you can let her go," said another man. "Box her round with the staysail, Donegal. She'll fall off now. Let draw, and out with the main-boom again!"
There was no sharpness in the man's voice, and he spoke with a drawl, but Appleby had never seen sail handled as quickly on board the Aldebaran. Here and there a dark object hauled on a rope, and then with a swing to leeward and a swift upward lurch the schooner was on her way again. He did not fancy the vessel was a trader, because she seemed too fast and small for that, and while he wondered what her business might be the man who had spoken touched him.
"Come right along, and we'll have a look at you," he said.
Appleby and Niven followed him into the little house under the mainboom, the floor of which was below the level of the deck, and stood still with the water trickling from them while a lamp swung above them. A little stove burned in one corner, the place seemed very hot, while a curious odour pervaded it. Then Appleby's eyes rested on the man who sat down at one end of the little swing table. He was tall and lanky, and his face was lean, while his skin was the colour of new leather, and a ponderous hand rested on the table in front of him. His hair was slightly grizzled, and there was something that suggested resolution in the set of his lips and the shape of his chin. There was, however, a little smile in his eyes, which were very keen.
"Sit you down," he said. "Kind of cold night for a picnic, and you were making good time for Yokohama when we saw you first."
The lads obeyed him, and the man thumped upon the beam above him when Niven sank huddled into a corner and closed his eyes. Then there was a cold draught as a skylight opened and a man looked in. "Wanting anything?" he said.
"Tell Brulée to worry round and raise a pint or two of coffee—hot," said the man at the table, who glanced at Appleby. "Your partner's played out, but we'll fix him in a minute."