Darkness shut down on them suddenly as they thrashed her out to westward full and by, lurching with flooded decks over the charging seas. Their whitened tops broke over her, her canvas ran water, and every other minute she plunged into a comber with buried bows. The combers, growing rapidly higher, broke more angrily, and her progress changed into a series of jerks and plunges, which at times threatened to shake the spars out of her. Frank could see the black mainsail peak above him swinging madly up and down, and it seemed at times that half her length was out of the water, which was not improbably the case, for the foam upon her hove-up deck poured aft in cascades over the low coaming and splashed about their feet. By and by, for she was shallow-bodied like most centerboard craft, it began to gather in a pool which washed to and fro across the floorings in her lee bilge, and at a shout from Jake he started the pump. It needed no priming, for as soon as he unscrewed the covering plate the sea ran down, and there was now nothing to show what water it flung out, because half the lee deck was buried in a rush of gurgling foam and the combers' tops broke continuously over the bows.
Still, the work roused and warmed him, and he toiled on, battered and almost blinded by flying brine, while he wondered how long the boat would stand the pressure of her largely reduced sail. He did not think they could tie another reef in, because it seemed certain that something must burst or break the moment a rope was started. Besides, even had it been possible, reefing was out of the question. Their harbor lay to weather, and a boat will not sail to windward in a vicious breeze unless she is driven at a speed which is greater than the resistance of the opposing seas.
They thrashed her out for two anxious hours, since it appeared doubtful that she would come round and a failure to stay her would be perilous in the extreme, but at last Jake called to the boys.
"We've got to do it somehow," he said. "Stand by your lee jibsheet and tail on to the mainsheet the moment you let it run. Hold on till I tell you. We'll wait for a smooth."
A smooth, as it is termed by courtesy, is the interval that now and then follows the onslaught of several unusually heavy seas, and at length as the boat swung up with a little less water upon her deck Jake seemed satisfied.
"Now! Helm's a-lee!" he shouted.
They let the jib fly, and jumping for the mainsheet hauled with all their might, while Jake helped them with one hand as the boat came up to the wind. Then as a comber fell upon her they sprang back to the jibsheet and hauled upon it, while the spray flew all over them. It struck Frank that if the boat did not come round there would very speedily be an end of her. While he watched, holding his breath, the bows swung around a little farther, and working in frantic haste they let the sheet fly and made fast the opposite one, which was now to lee. She forged ahead on the other tack—and the most imminent peril was past.
It was two hours later when they raised the land again, and though one or the other of them had pumped continuously the water was splashing high about their feet. Jake had, however, made a good shot of it, for he recognized a ridge of higher ground marked upon the chart, and they drove in toward it, battered, swept, and streaming. Frank felt strangely limp when at length they ran into smoother water, and Jake made one significant remark.
"We're through," he said, "but if we'd had to make another tack it would have finished her."
The black land grew higher until they could make out masses of shadowy pines, and eventually dropping the jib and peak they ran her in behind a point with very thankful hearts and let go the anchor. Half of their task was finished, and they could take their ease until morning broke.