“I see,” remarked the young lady. “The ship is as obedient to her guide as a well-trained child. And it seems easy enough to guide her. I believe I could do it myself.”
“Certainly you could. Would you like to try?” said Ned, who at length fancied he could see the drift of his fair interlocutor’s remarks.
“I should very much,” answered Miss Stanhope. “But I did not like to ask, fearing that such a request would be a transgression against nautical etiquette.”
“By no means,” said Ned. “Captain Blyth is one of the most gallant of men; he would never dream of opposing so very reasonable a desire on the part of a lady—at least, not now, when no possible harm can come of it. If you will take my place on this raised grating, I shall be delighted to initiate you into the art. This side, please—the helmsman always stands on the weather side. That is right. Now grasp this spoke with your left hand, and this with your right, so—that is precisely the right attitude. Now, you feel a slight tremor in the wheel, do you not? That indicates that the water is pressing gently against the rudder—the ship carries a small weather-helm, as a well-modelled and properly rigged ship should—and if you were to release the wheel it would move a spoke or two to the right, and the ship would run up into the wind. Now, at present we are steering ‘full and by,’ which means that we are to steer as near the wind as possible, and at the same time to keep all the sails full. You see that small sail right at the top of all on the mainmast? That is the main-skysail. It is braced a shade less fore and aft than the other sails; so if you keep it full you will be certain to also have all the rest of the canvas full. Now you will observe an occasional gentle flapping movement of the weather leach of that sail—the edge of it, I mean. That indicates that the sail is just full and no more; and you must keep your eye on that weather leach and maintain just precisely that gentle flapping movement. If it ceases, the sail is unnecessarily full, and you are not keeping a good ‘luff,’ and you must turn the wheel a shade to the right; if it increases, you are sailing rather too near the wind, and must press the wheel a trifle to the left. Do you understand me?”
“I think so,” answered Sibylla, compressing her lips, grasping the spokes tightly, and concentrating her whole attention upon the weather leach of the skysail.
She proved an apt pupil; and though for the first ten minutes or so the course of the ship was a trifle erratic, and steering in a straight line proved to be not quite so simple and easy a matter as she had deemed it, Miss Sibylla soon caught the knack, and at the end of half an hour the Flying Cloud was making as straight a wake again as though the best helmsman in the ship had her in hand.
“Why, this is splendid!” exclaimed Ned. “You are evidently a born helmsman—or helmswoman, rather—Miss Stanhope. Permit me to congratulate you on your success. Not a man in the ship could do better than you are now doing. I foresee that, before long, whenever any extra fine steering has to be done, we shall have to request you to take the wheel.”
“Thank you; that is a very neatly turned compliment,” remarked Sibylla. “But I am afraid I do not wholly deserve it. For the last five minutes I have been steering, not by the little sail up there, as you told me, but by that small dark object right ahead. It is so much easier—”
“Small dark object! where away?” interrupted Ned. “Ah! I see it. Sail ho! right ahead Mr Bryce,” he reported to the chief-mate.
The mate, who was sitting smoking on a hen-coop, to leeward, close to the break of the poop, rose slowly to his feet, walked to the weather side of the deck, and, shading his eyes with his hand, looked ahead, but was apparently unable to see anything.