"Now if you like," he replied. "The young flood has set in, though, but with the wind in this quarter we can stem it and pick up the east-going tide outside. Just hand me down that bundle of charts."
Gerald did so, and his chum picked out one of the English Channel.
"We ought to make St. Catherine's before daybreak," continued Jack "And then with a decent slice of luck we can make a slant across and pick up Cape Barfleur before sunset. It's barely fifty miles as the crow flies. So we'll get under way now, and when we are outside the harbour you can turn in. I had a good spell below during the day, so a night's watch won't trouble me."
"All right; I'm game," repeated Tregarthen. Twenty minutes later the Playmate was heeling over to the steady breeze. Her voyage, that was fated to be the forerunner of a wealth of peculiar adventures, had begun.
[Illustration: CHAPTER III]
RUN DOWN
A FEW years ago a commander-in-chief is reported to have declared that our seamen are the worst boat-sailors in the world, while another naval officer of high rank has written: "I don't think there is any foreign navy that is not better than us in the handling of their boats—ours is a disgrace." Thanks, however, to the forethought of the Admiralty in providing fore and aft rigged cutters for the use of the cadets at Dartmouth this stigma is gradually being removed.
Owing to the opportunities thus provided Gerald Tregarthen was no novice on board a yacht. He had steered the college cutters to victory on several occasions, and, now once having acquired the knack of dealing with the Playmate's peculiarities, he was quite capable of taking charge of the tiller while Jack Stockton attended to the numerous duties so necessary when about to make a long passage.