"Unstop the mainsail!" he roared. "Show the peak! Douse the jib!"
Again he motioned to Jerry, knowing that his voice would not be heard forward. He saw Tab pause a moment, and then wave his arm in reply. To his utter dismay, however, he saw the mate and the men with him stoop, get hold of the "sea-anchor," and, tugging and stumbling, begin to haul it up to the weather side. It flashed on Jack that his gestures had been misunderstood, and his order to get down the jib mistaken for a command to launch the "anchor." With a sickening plunge the Merle at that moment coasted down a mighty wave, fell off, and lay broadside to the seas. For a second he felt as if everything was lost.
"Smartly!" he roared to the starboard watch, who were working for their lives upon the main-boom.
He gave them one glance, and started to rush forward, running recklessly along, and feeling for his sheath-knife as he went. A quick lurch of the yacht to port flung him off his feet, and shot him forward and to his right. He instinctively flung out his hand, and clutched something metallic.
"'Ware water!" he mumbled, half stunned.
A green shadow curled over him. There was a crashing roar to leeward. He felt the yacht stagger and tremble, and suddenly and with an odd mental twist he remembered vividly an earthquake shock he had once felt at Patras. The shadow disappeared, a little water came slap! on his oilskin jacket between the shoulders. The rest of the wave—tons and tons of green water—had curled itself over him, and crashed on the decks to leeward.
He got to his feet unsteadily, and with a queer singing in his ears ran forward. He threw a quick look to port as he ran. The force of the sea had evidently been heaviest amidships, for he saw that for thirty feet on the lee beam the rail had been burst out between the fore and main rigging; two boats were gone, and the skylights, broken, yawned blackly. Jack groaned inwardly, but did not stop. Pitching and staggering, he made his way to the foremast. A sudden fling of the yacht threatened to make him, as he afterward put it, "overshoot the mark" and tumble past the halyards. Fortunately, however, he checked himself by catching at the foretopsail-clewline as he was being pitched by, and he clung to it desperately. He laid hold of the spitfire halyard. One quick glance at the turns about the pin in the rack told him how much time he should save by cutting the rope, and with a swift backdrawing of the sharp sheath-knife he severed it. The fall of the halyard flew up aloft, playfully dealing him a smart rap on the chin as it went; the sail ran down in thunder, and blew away in shreds. The Merle began to rise, and Jack felt a thrill of joyful relief to see that she was coming up into the wind. The men aft had showed the peak of the mainsail, and the schooner was feeling its effects.
A few yards forward, Jerry and the port watch were still toiling over the "sea-anchor." Twice they had tried to set it in position for launching, and each time wind and sea had overmastered them. Jack, in an agony lest the structure should be launched before the yacht was laid about on the other tack, or at least so near the wind that the awkward contrivance could be got over the bows to port, stumbled forward shouting.
"To port!" he roared. "Get it over to port!"