Harper appeared reflective. “Yes,” he said, “that’s what I was thinking. Well, with this wind the Point would break the sea, and she mightn’t bump the bottom out of her if we did put her on the bar. Those fellows couldn’t get a clear shot at us across the trees, and they wouldn’t be anxious to send boats in considering the sea that’s running. Still, there’s a thing that’s worrying me.”
He glanced forward towards one of the streaks of froth which Appleby surmised showed where a reef lay below, and Rosendo made an expressive grimace.
“Los Dientes!” he said, and spread his arms out as though to indicate a measure. “One brazo a half now.”
Harper nodded. “I can’t run for the gut behind it without bringing that fellow too close,” he said. “If I go round to weather we’ll have to close-haul her, and he’d come up near enough to sink us if we took sail off her. Still, she’ll scarcely carry what she has got now on the wind.”
Rosendo shrugged his shoulders as he said in Castilian, “Between the fire and the cooking pot there is not much choice, my friend!”
Then the men between the masts came aft together, and one of them, whose color was not exactly white, stopped in front of Harper.
“We have no use for being run slap on the Dientes, and she’s not going to work off it if we hold on much longer.”
Harper swung a hand up commandingly. “When I’m not fit to sail this boat I’ll ask your help,” he said. “I’ve a good deal less use for showing the Spaniard just what I mean to do while he could spoil my hand by altering his course a point or two. Get your boom-foresail over, and the staysail on to her!”
It was done, though the “Ventura” rolled her rail in when the big sail swung banging over. By and by Harper brought the wind abeam, and she drove along at an angle to her previous course, with one side hove high, while the sea came in in cataracts over either bow. Appleby clutched the rail, for the deck slanted away beneath him, and he wondered how the barefooted men kept their footing. The other rail was apparently level with the sea, and the brine that sluiced down the incline washed knee-deep inside it. The masts sloped as the deck did, with the spray beating like grapeshot into the foresail between them; but the topmasts above them slanted further, and Appleby understood why Harper’s face was anxious when he glanced aloft. The gunboat was within easy range now, and it was evident there would be no escape for them if anything yielded under the strain. In fact, Appleby was wondering whether her commander felt sure of them since he was not firing, when there was another flash followed by the roar of a gun. An unseen object that could be heard through the sound of wind and sea passed between the masts, and Harper nodded.
“I guess that decides the thing. What she can’t carry she’ll have to drag,” he said.