Still, the man knew his work, and did it, and at last, towards nightfall, when the sea was all spray and foam, Jordan, who came up, stood staring astern. After a minute or two he shook his head.
"We had better round her up while we can," he said. "Get the main-gaff down, and you'll be handy with the trysail."
They were very handy, and there was a good many of them, but Appleby held his breath when the foresail was lowered, and the mainsail peak swung down. Jordan was still looking astern, and he nodded after an especially big sea went smoking past them.
"We'll try it now," he said.
The man beside him swayed with the wheel, the Champlain swung round to windward, and there was a roar when a roller burst into spray upon that side of her. Then she swung further yet, and as the big mainboom came down the little three-cornered trysail went thrashing up the mast. Everybody was doing something amidst a great banging of canvas, and in another few moments there was a wonderful quietness. Appleby gasped, and Stickine who went by dripping grinned at him, while Jordan nodded to the men.
"She'll lie easy now," he said.
In place of running before it the Champlain lay almost head to wind, rising and falling with now and then a little lurch to leeward and a curious buoyancy. The strip of sail above her bowsprit and the trysail aft just sufficed to hold her stationary, and it was with little more than a spray wisp at her bows she bobbed in a curious cork-like fashion to the sea. Except for one or two of them the men crawled away below, and the lads, who were wet through, were glad to climb down into the stuffy warmth beneath the hatch.
It was dark down there now save for the flickering radiance of the lamp which shone upon the wet brown faces and the smears of smoke. The dusky hold reeked with the smell of steaming clothes, but the lads had grown used to odours which would have sickened them before they went to sea. Niven shook off the oilskins Jordan had given him, and as usual commenced his questions.
"The sea looked nasty before we brought her up," he said. "How was it we scarcely shipped any of it?"
"It was," said Stickine dryly. "Still, Ned Jordan knows his business, sonny."