“About nine hours. You see there’s a rocky patch in the entrance, and not much room to tack. Then Saltom wants to put her on the beach, and we’d have to wait until near high-water unless we go in at once. Still, it’s a very awkward place.”
“Take her in and chance it!”
As she drew nearer, Aynsley stood in the rigging, studying the shore through his glasses. He could see by the wet belt above the fringe of surf that the water had fallen; and the inlet had a forbidding look. On the starboard side of its mouth the tops of massive boulders showed through the leaping foam; to port there was a rocky shoal; and beyond these dangers a deep, narrow channel ran inland between the hills. The wind blew straight down it, lashing the water white.
“We’ll want speed; you’d better give her the whole mainsail,” he advised the skipper when he came down.
For a few minutes the crew were busy shaking out the reef, and then as the yacht buried her lee bulwarks Aynsley took the wheel. The sea was smoother close in along the land, but she was hard pressed by her large spread of sail, and the water that leaped in across her bows flowed ankle-deep across the steeply slanted deck. The tall masts bent to leeward, the weather shrouds hummed, and her crew stood with bent legs at their stations on the inclined wet planking, ready to seize the sheets. Forward, a dripping seaman swung the lead in the midst of the spray cloud that whirled about her rigging, and his voice came faintly aft through the roar of parted water.
“Seven fathom!” He missed a cast, and his next cry was sharper. “Shoaling, sir! And a quarter six!”
There was silence for a few moments while he gathered up his line, and the yacht raced in toward the beach.
“By the deep, four!” he called.
“Ready about!” shouted Aynsley, pulling at his wheel. “Helm’s a-lee!”
There was a furious thrashing of canvas as she rose to an even keel, while rocks and pines closed in on one another as her bows swung round. Then she started on the opposite tack, heading for the entrance, with the boulders not far to leeward and the tide on her weather bow. It carried her back, the trailing screw hampered her, and when a wild gust hove her down until the sea boiled level with her rail Clay, holding on by a shroud, glanced sharply at his son.