"... six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Now! Swing her hard aport! Hold her, hold her!"
To Green, high up on the topmost spar of the foremast, the turning about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. He could feel the hull, and with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses told him that they must inevitably capsize and send him crashing to the ground. But his senses lied, for though he seemed to fall forever, the time came when the journey back toward an upright position began. Then he was sure he would keep falling the other way, forever.
Suddenly the sails fluttered. The vessel had come into the dead spot where there was no wind acting upon her canvas. Then, as her original impetus kept her going, the canvas boomed, seeming to his straining and oversensitive ears like cannon firing. This time the wind was catching her from what was for her a completely unnatural direction, from dead ahead. As a result, the sails filled out backwards, and their middle portions pressed against the masts.
The 'roller came almost to a stop at once. The rigging groaned, and the masts themselves creaked loudly. Then they were bending backwards, while the sailors clinging to them in the darkness swore under their breaths and clamped down desperately on their handholds.
"Gods!" said Green. "What is he doing?"
"Quiet!" said a nearby man, the foretop-captain. "Miran is going to run her backwards."
Green gasped. But he made no further comment, trying to visualize what a strange sight the Bird of Fortune must be, and wishing it were daylight so he could see her. He sympathized with the helmsmen, who had to act against their entire training. It was a bad enough strain for them to try to sail blindly between two vessels. But to roll in reverse! They would have to put the helm to port when their reflexes cried out to them to put it to starboard, and vice versa! And no doubt Miran was aware of this and was warning them about it every few seconds.
Green began to see what was happening. By now the Bird was rolling on her former course, but at a reduced rate because the sails, bellying against their masts, would not offer as much surface to the wind. Therefore, the Ving vessels would by now be almost upon them, since the merchant ship had also lost much ground in her maneuver. In one or two minutes the Ving would overtake them, would for a short while ride side by side with them, then would pass.
Provided, of course, that Miran had estimated correctly his speed and rate of curve in turning. Otherwise they might even now expect a crash from the foredeck as the bow of the Ving caught them.
"Oh, Booxotr," prayed the foretop-captain. "Steer us right, else you lose your most devout worshiper, Miran."