"Jolly fine, sir, to taste the spray," commented Peter as a feather of foam flew in over the yacht's weather bow. "How long will the passage take?"
Mr. Grant shook his head.
"Can't say," he replied. "It depends entirely upon whether the breeze holds, since Mr. Clifton doesn't care to use the motor. At this rate, we ought to make Mapplewick before dark."
Alas, for that surmise! Just about noon the wind failed entirely, and the Thetis, with jack topsail set above her mainsail and a jib-headed topsail over her mizzen, was helplessly becalmed. She had set every possible stitch of canvas, but to no purpose. There she lay, rolling sluggishly, with the main-boom swinging from side to side with a succession of jerks that every sailing man knows and has good cause to hate.
The rays of the sun beat pitilessly down upon the deck, while the oily surface of the water reflected the glare and seemed to throw off as much heat as that from the orb of day.
Mr. Grant gave an inquiring glance at his chum, but Mr. Clifton shook his head.
"No," he replied, "we won't use the engine. Bad seamanship—very. Motors weren't known in my young days, and we yachtsmen got on very well without them. Always managed to fetch somewhere after a calm."
So they stuck it.
It was a tedious experience. Nothing could be done. The Thetis wallowed and rolled, swept slowly and imperceptibly along by a steady two-knot tide. The low-lying shore was invisible, there were no buoys or beacons in sight, not even another sail—nothing to be seen but an expanse of cloudless sky and mirror-like sea.
"How about grub?" inquired the owner of the Thetis, shaking off his drowsiness and stretching his cramped limbs.