"That'll do, Jerry," called Jack from the wheel.
"All right, captain," Tab returned, laughing. "Under orders."
"Oh, but that's not fair," cried Katrine. "If Mr. Castleport played the hero too, we want to know all about it."
"I'll masthead that mate if he goes on talking about his superior officer," Jack threatened. "See, the Isis has given the whole thing up."
"She'd better," commented Jerry, "though I don't see that she had anything left to give."
The yawl was well astern now. Her sailing-master had for a little time, in a vain endeavor to overtake his rival, pinched his boat unmercifully, so that with her nose in the wind's eye her sails were every now and then a-shiver. Now she had evidently accepted the inevitable, and was making quietly for an anchorage.
"Tell us about Mr. Castleport," Katrine said to Jerry in an undertone.
"Oh," returned Tab, "he stuck to the wheel over forty-eight hours when we had that blow we were talking about. It was a magnificent thing to do, and I think he saved us from everlasting smash. Of course he pooh-poohs the idea, but Jack's never willing to have anybody say he's done anything big. He's as modest as he is stunning," he ended warmly, throwing at the captain a glance of admiration and affection.
Katrine made no audible comment, but her glance followed his, and had Jack intercepted her look at that moment, he might have felt his heart beat more briskly.
The superior speed of the Merle, aided by the poor tactics of the skipper of the Isis, who seemed to lose his head when he found he was beaten, gave the American so much the lead that the schooner had dropped her anchor a minute or two before the yawl rounded the inner mole.