Then he turned to the man in oilskins who held the steering wheel. "Hard over. Run her right down on them."
The Shasta's bows came round, and the light was growing clearer when she lay with engines stopped as close to windward of the Adelaide as Jimmy dared venture. The latter crawled ahead sluggishly, heaving her bows up streaming out of the long seas that fell away beneath a high wall of slanted iron hull until the blackened strips of sailcloth swung wildly back again. Then her tall side sank down until the line of rail was level with the brine. A couple of shapeless, oilskinned figures clung to her slanted bridge with the spray whirling about them, and ragged wisps of cloud drove fast across the low and dingy sky overhead.
Jimmy watched her with eyes half-closed to keep the spray out, which had a portentous glint in them. This was a moment for which he had waited long months, and now his turn had come. If Jordan were right—and the fact that the Adelaide was there to leeward of him with engines useless certainly suggested it—he had only to play his cards well and deal the man who had ruined his father a crushing blow. He set his lips tight as he remembered that when it fell the man's daughter must bear it too, for he was bound by every honorable tie to do what he could for the men who had entrusted him with the Shasta. That fact, he felt, must stand first with him; but he was also a seaman, and could not stand by while a costly vessel drove ashore as the result of an infamous conspiracy. While he waited, grim-faced, with his wet hand clenched on the telegraph, a string of flags fluttered up between the other steamer's masts, and he laughed harshly as he turned to Lindstrom, who had come up again with a brush and a strip of board.
"That's quite plain without the code," he said. "Engines given out, and he's open for a tow. Well, he shall have it, on conditions. Closer, quartermaster. Lindstrom, hold the board for me."
He painted his answer neatly in big bold letters, and when he had pressed down his telegraph flung up an arm for a sign to the cluster of very wet men below.
"Look at this thing, and remember it," he shouted. "Hold it up before you hang it out, Lindstrom."
The mate did as he was bidden, and one or two of the men made a sign of comprehension, for, as all on board share in salvage, they were keenly interested too. Then the quartermaster pulled over his wheel, and the Shasta crept ahead a little with a message hung outside her bridge rails.
"Half your appraised value, or the court's award."
There was no answer for several minutes, though the flags came fluttering down, and then a thing happened that apparently strengthened Jimmy's hand, which was, as he alone knew, a particularly strong one already. A white streak appeared to leeward, perhaps two miles away beneath the gray loom of land, and it was evident that the Adelaide's skipper knew it was the filmy spray flung up by crumbling breakers. Two or three colored strips ran up between her masts again, and the hard smile crept back into Jimmy's eyes.
"Seems to fancy he'll get off easier through the court," he said to Lindstrom. "Well, he's wrong; but the first thing is to get their rope on board. Strip your lifeboat, and get her clear."