Bob and his fellow apprentices, together with Lance and Rex, were soon summoned, and preparations made for bearing up. It was an anxious moment, for should the boat be caught broadside-on by a breaking sea she would to a dead certainty be turned bottom-up, when nothing could save her occupants.
Captain Staunton stood at the tiller, intently watching the onward rush of the mountainous seas as they came swooping down with upreared threatening crests upon the launch. Presently, as the boat fell off a trifle from the wind and the main-sail filled, he gave the order to “let draw the jib-sheet.” The weather sheet was let go and the lee one hauled in like lightning, and the boat began to forge ahead. A sea came swooping down upon the little craft, but it was not a dangerous one; the skipper sent the boat manfully at it, and with a wild bound she rose over the crest and plunged into the liquid valley beyond. The next sea was a much more formidable one, but by luffing the boat just in the nick of time she went through and over it, with no worse consequences than the shipping of a dozen or so buckets of water, a mishap to which they were by this time growing quite accustomed, and then there occurred a very decided “smooth.”
“Brail up the main-sail, boys,” shouted the skipper cheerily, and in a second it was done; the helm was put up, the boat’s head fell off, and away she went with a rush, broadside-on to the sea. With a sickening heave she rose into the air as the next sea lifted her, and this time too a little water came on board, but nothing to speak of; and by the time the next wave caught her, her quarter was fairly turned to it, and she was rushing away before the wind. The fore-sail was then set and the main-sail stowed, and everybody sat down to watch the result.
The change was certainly for the better; for though a sea still occasionally broke on board it did so with less violence than before, and most of it now flowed off the deck and overboard again, instead of falling into the body of the boat as before.
As soon as the fore-sail was set, Captain Staunton steered for the pinnace, with the intention of ordering her also to bear up, as well as to inquire whether they had seen either of the other boats.
Suddenly, Bob, who was watching the little speck in the distance which showed against the horizon when both launch and pinnace happened to be on the summit of a wave together, caught sight for a single instant of what appeared to him to be an attempt at a signal made on board the latter.
“Hillo!” he exclaimed, “What’s wrong with the pinnace? They’re waving to us, sir.”
“Indeed!” said the skipper in a tone of concern. “Are you sure, Bob? Here, take the tiller for a moment and let me have a look. Keep her dead before it.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded Bob, as he changed places with his superior; the latter going forward and steadying himself by the fore-mast as he watched for the reappearance of the pinnace.
Presently he caught sight of her, and caught sight too, most unmistakably, of a flag—or something doing duty therefor—being very energetically waved on board.