We were steering almost due north now; and, looking ahead under the leech of the lugsail, I could see that the clouds we had observed before banked up on the horizon had crept up towards the zenith, spreading out laterally on either side, until half of the heavens was obscured.
Then, all of a sudden, the wind dropped, as if done with a turn of the hand.
“Look out there for your sheet!” cried old Draper, in a warning tone, assuming the direction of affairs and taking command of the boat unconsciously in the emergency, over the head of his officer, Mr Chisholm. “Let go your sheet, I say!”
Bouncer the seaman, who sat on the after thwart and had charge of this, bungled about the job, having taken a turn with the end of the rope round the cleat, instead of holding it in his fist as he should have done; and the coxswain’s harsh repetition of the order in such an imperative tone seemed to flurry him, making him all the slower.
“Hang it all, man!” shouted Mr Chisholm, taking up the cry, “let go the sheet at once!”
Seeing what a fog Bouncer was in, besides which the sail was just then beginning to bulge back as the wind headed us, the boat rocking for an instant and then canting over as if she was going to capsize, I drew my knife and rushed to where he sat in the bottom of the boat, struggling with the sheet!