"Down peak!" called Mr. Oliver. "We'll have to jibe her."
Frank had learned that to jibe a boat is to turn her around stern to wind, instead of head-on, which is the usual way, and scrambling forward with Harry he helped lower the peak. After that they again floundered aft, leaving the mainsail reduced in size, and grabbed the sheet as Mr. Oliver put up his helm. The bows swung around as the boat went up with a sea, and the big boom tilted high up into the darkness above the boys. They struggled savagely with the sheet, which slightly restrained it, until the boat rolled suddenly down upon her side as the sail jerked over and the rope was torn swiftly through their hands. There was a crash and a bang, and Frank was conscious that the water was pouring over the coaming. He clung to the sheet, however, and while Mr. Oliver helped them with one hand they got a little of it in, after which the sloop, rising somewhat, drove forward. A few minutes later the sea suddenly became smoother, the wind seemed cut off, and Frank made out a black mass of rock rising close above them. They ran on beneath it until Mr. Oliver, rounding the boat up, bade them pitch the anchor over.
CHAPTER XI
MR. BARCLAY JOINS THE PARTY
When the boat brought up to her anchor the boys spent some time straightening up her gear and pumping her out. The work put a little warmth into them, but they were glad to crawl into the cabin when it was done. There was scarcely room in it to sit upright, and with the moisture standing beaded everywhere it looked rather like the inside of a well. Mr. Oliver had lighted the stove and a lamp was burning. By and by he took off a hissing kettle, and when they had made a meal they lay down in their wet clothes amidst a raffle of more or less dripping ropes and sails. Fortunately, the place was warm, and Frank was thankful to stretch himself out along the side of the boat. He was discovering that mental strain of the kind he had undergone during the last few hours is as fatiguing as bodily labor.
But he did not immediately go to sleep. The craft rocked upon the long swell which worked in round the point, with now and then a sharp rattle as she plucked hard at her cable. Sometimes she swung suddenly around upon it as an eddying blast swept down from the rocks above, and the drumming of the halliards against the mast broke continuously through the moan of the wind among the trees ashore and the deeper rumble of the ground sea. At last, however, he fell into a heavy slumber, and it was daylight and Harry had put the spider on the stove when he awoke again. He made his breakfast before he went out on deck, to find that the wind had dropped a little and it was raining hard. The dim, slate-green water lapped noisily upon the wall of rock close by, and glancing seaward he saw nothing but a leaden haze and a short stretch of tumbling combers. Mr. Oliver had gone out earlier and was standing on the deck looking about him.
"There's no great weight in the wind, though the sea's still rather high," he said presently. "I think we can push on for Victoria."
Frank, who fancied they would not get there before that night, was by no means so keen about the sail as he had been on the previous day. He felt that it would be considerably pleasanter to remain in the shelter of the point until the sun came out or the wind went down, and it seemed to him that Harry shared his opinion. The dog also looked very draggled and miserable and had evidently had enough of the voyage. They, however, set the mainsail, leaving the reefs in, hauled up the anchor, and hoisted the jib as the sloop stretched out across the waste of tumbling water, after which the boys went below to straighten up the breakfast things. Frank once or twice felt a little sick as he did so, and he noticed that Harry wore a somewhat anxious look.
"It's not blowing as hard as it was when we ran in, but I don't think dad would have gone unless he'd some particular reason," Harry said at length. "I wonder who the man is he expects to meet in Victoria, because I'm inclined to believe it's not the one who wants him to look at the land. The worst of dad is that he keeps such a lot to himself."
They crawled out again shortly afterward and found the seas getting longer and bigger. Once or twice a blur of something went by that might have been the end of an island, and Mr. Oliver changed his course a little, but after that the dim, green water stretched away before them empty and only broken by smears of snowy froth, and the sloop drove on before the combers which came up out of the haze astern of her in long succession.