As the master let go the wheel, took off his hat, and drew forth a pocket-handkerchief to wipe his streaming visage, the end of the reef drew fair abeam, and so close that I could almost have leaped from the main rigging into the boil of surf that seethed and hissed and swirled about the black fangs of rock that showed here and there above water. But the danger was over, for as the ship went plunging and surging past one could see how, every time she lifted, she was, as it were, dragged bodily to windward by the strong undertow, and a minute later the reef was astern, but fast working out on the weather quarter, showing quite clearly how exceedingly narrow had been our escape.
“Hold on there with the anchor, Mr Howard!” shouted the skipper. The first lieutenant waved his hand and came aft, wet to the skin, and his clothes streaming with water as though he had been overboard—as indeed he had, to all intents and purposes; for while standing on the forecastle, waiting for the order to let go the anchor, he had been quite as much under water as above it.
“That is as narrow a squeak as I have ever beheld, sir,” he exclaimed, as he joined the skipper. “If it had not been for that half-board that we involuntarily made, we should never have done it.”
“No,” agreed the skipper; “I believe that not even the undertow would have saved us. However, ‘all’s well that ends well,’ so we will first take the mainsail off her, Mr Howard, and then you may splice the main-brace and call the watch. Let her go along clean full, quartermaster; there is nothing to leeward now that we need be afraid of. How’s her head?”
“Nor’-nor’-west, sir,” answered the quartermaster.
The clewing-up and stowing of the mainsail, without allowing it to thresh itself to ribbons, was a task of no little difficulty, considering the violence with which the gale was still blowing; but our first luff was seaman enough to accomplish it without mishap. No sooner was it off the ship than she once more resumed her former buoyancy of motion, lifting easily over the seas, with only an occasional sprinkling of spray upon the forecastle, instead of ploughing furiously through them and drowning the whole of the fore-deck, as she had been doing during her endeavour to work out to windward of Point du Raz; so great, indeed, was the improvement in our condition generally that, although it was still blowing very heavily, we all felt as though we had suddenly passed into fine weather after our recent buffeting.
Some three-quarters of an hour later we passed Les Stevenets. I believe we might have weathered them had we really made a serious effort to do so, but there was no need. In this case, unlike that of Point du Raz, we had the option of going to leeward if we chose, and the skipper did choose. He had evidently had enough of close shaves for one day, and the moment he recognised that we should have another if he made the attempt to weather that group of rocks, he ordered the helm to be put up, and we passed to leeward of them, giving them a good wide berth. We had no stomach for again viewing surf-washed rocks at such close quarters as we had been fated to do that day.
By the time that we were well clear of Les Stevenets night had fallen; but for the previous hour the sky had been gradually clearing, so that by the end of the second dog-watch it was a fine, clear, star-lit night. The wind, too, was distinctly moderating; while the sea, although still very high, was longer, more regular, and not quite so steep as it had been; in a word, the gale had broken, and by midnight we were once more under courses and single-reefed topsails. By the end of the middle watch we were able to shake out the reefs in our topsails and set the topgallantsails, after which we hove about and headed south once more, passing well to windward of the Isle de Seins and its outlying reefs about noon next day.