“Yes, it must be the work of some scoundrel ashore,” I observed.
He pulled the edge of the hood well forward over his brow before he muttered:
“A scoundrel. . . . Yes. . . . It’s evident.”
“Well,” I said, “they can’t get us, that’s clear.”
“No,” he assented quietly, “they cannot.”
We shaved the Cape very close to avoid an adverse current. On the other side, by the effect of the land, the wind failed us so completely for a moment that the Tremolino’s two great lofty sails hung idle to the masts in the thundering uproar of the seas breaking upon the shore we had left behind. And when the returning gust filled them again, we saw with amazement half of the new mainsail, which we thought fit to drive the boat under before giving way, absolutely fly out of the bolt-ropes. We lowered the yard at once, and saved it all, but it was no longer a sail; it was only a heap of soaked strips of canvas cumbering the deck and weighting the craft. Dominic gave the order to throw the whole lot overboard.
I would have had the yard thrown overboard, too, he said, leading me aft again, “if it had not been for the trouble. Let no sign escape you,” he continued, lowering his voice, “but I am going to tell you something terrible. Listen: I have observed that the roping stitches on that sail have been cut! You hear? Cut with a knife in many places. And yet it stood all that time. Not enough cut. That flap did it at last. What matters it? But look! there’s treachery seated on this very deck. By the horns of the devil! seated here at our very backs. Do not turn, signorine.”
We were facing aft then.
“What’s to be done?” I asked, appalled.
“Nothing. Silence! Be a man, signorine.”