A Narrow Squeak.
During the forenoon watch, the deck was in charge of Mr Adams, the second mate—a plain, steady-going, matter-of-fact sort of man, with none of that buoyant spirit and keen sense of humour which characterised hid senior shipmate McCarthy, although he was a thorough sailor to the backbone, and believed the human race to be divided into two classes, those who were seamen and those who weren’t. The wind now took a more favourable turn, settling itself in the south-east quarter as if it meant to remain there, thus enabling the ship to steer a better course; and, meanwhile, the sky clearing up a bit, the threatening clouds drifted to leeward and the sun shone out again just as it did when the captain first came on deck in the early morning.
Taking advantage of the change, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, the courses let fall again, the jib and flying-jib hoisted, and the topgallants set; and soon, with her head steering south-west and a half south, the Nancy Bell was bounding over the waves under all plain sail, as if anxious to make up for the time she had lost in tacking about against the head-wind that had barred her southward progress ever since she took her departure from the Lizard Point on the previous day when she hauled out from the Channel.
The breeze was freshening, and there was a nasty sort of chopping sea, when the captain came on the poop at noon to take the sun, in order to ascertain his longitude—an operation which would have been much more difficult in the hazy weather that had prevailed some few hours previous, with the zenith every now and then overcast by the fleecy storm wrack and flying scud that came drifting across the sky as the wind veered; but the ship was making good running, and everything bade fair for her soon crossing the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on whose troubled waters she had now entered.
“She’s slipping along!” said Captain Dinks to Adams, rubbing his hands together gleefully, as he put down his sextant on the top of the saloon skylight for a moment and gave a glance aloft and then over the side to windward.
“Yes, sir,” replied the second mate. “Going fine—eleven knots last heave of the lead.”
“Ah, nothing can beat her on a bowline!” said the captain triumphantly. “She’s a clipper and no mistake when she has the wind abeam: bears her canvas well, too, for a little un!” he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings.
“Yes, sir; she does,” agreed Adams; “but, don’t you think, sir, she’s carrying on too much now that the wind has got up? I was just going to call the hands to take in sail when you came on deck.”
“Certainly not,” replied Captain Dinks, struck aghast by the very suggestion of such a thing. “I won’t have a stitch off her! Why, man alive, you wouldn’t want me to lose this breeze with such a lot of leeway as we have to make up?”
“No, sir; but—”