The Susan Jane plunged through the waves with redoubled speed, leaning over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc’s’le, and pouring down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a jumble of broken rainbows.
“What does she make now, Johnson?” asked the skipper again of the quartermaster.
“Eleven knots, I reckon, sir, good.”
“Ah, that’s more like it! The poor dear thing! she was crippled without her wings, that she was! She’ll do twelve-knots yet, eh, Seth?”
“I don’t doubt that, sir,” replied the mate, who was much more cautious than his captain; “but it ain’t quite safe with those gentlemen there gathering together ahead, like a mass meeting in Faneuil Hall.”
“Oh, never mind the clouds,” rejoined the delighted skipper, whose thoughts were filled with the fond belief that the Susan Jane would make the most rapid run across the herring-pond ever known for a sailing-ship. “Guess we’ll beat the Scotia, if we go on like this.”
“Yes, if we don’t carry away anything!” interposed the mate cautiously.
“Oh, nonsense, Seth! We’ve got a smart crew, and can take in sail when it’s wanted! How’s your patient getting on?” continued the skipper, turning to Mr Rawlings, who had come up, the boy being in a profound sleep.
“Well, I hope,” he answered; “he is resting very tranquilly.”
“That means, I suppose, that he’s all right, and having a good caulk in my cot.”