“Don’t mention breakfast to me,” protested George. “I could eat the side of a house!”
As Jack put the helm over, the canvas flapped and slashed madly, and then, as the sails bellied, a terrific gust of wind swept down on the Sea-Lark. Before Jack had time to ease her up into the wind again she listed far over, the wind screaming in her halyards while a smother of spume weltered over her deck. It seemed that something must give way under the strain, and in the midst of the confusion the eye-bolt pulled out of the mast. Down fell the peak, and to his alarm Jack found the mainsail out of commission at the very moment when it was most needed.
Leaving the wheel to take care of itself—for the boat was no longer under control—he sprang forward to help George in the task of getting the useless sail down and stowing the jib, and as the sloop fell away into the trough of the sea, trouble of a very real nature began to overwhelm her. A solid green wave slapped the side and slopped inboard, filling the cockpit and nearly washing both captain and mate off their feet. Away poured the water through the scuppers, but, although the companionway door was closed, much of the sea leaked down into the cabin, and by the time the lads had furled the sails their attention was badly needed at the pump. Jack jumped into the cockpit and worked away at the crank furiously, while the sloop drifted along under bare poles, utterly at the mercy of every wave which came her way. At times she dug her nose deep down into the center of a rearing sea and fell away from it crazily, broaching to, only to be half swamped by the succeeding wave. Away were swept all the fish the lads had caught. Time after time the cockpit was full of water, and there was nothing Jack could do to prevent it leaking down into the cabin. So long as the pump did not choke he hoped to be able to keep her afloat unless she turned over, but the danger of the latter was now increasing every minute, for the gale was gaining strength and the sloop was drifting farther from the lee of the land all the time. Before long the breakwater, the houses on the Point, and even the lighthouse had dipped below the horizon, and the Sea-Lark was the center of an angry circle of foam-flecked water, bounded on every point of the compass by the sky-line only.
“We’re in for it, for fair, now,” said Jack, standing by his chum’s side in the little cockpit and recovering his breath while George took a hand at the pump. “And there isn’t a blessed sail in sight. Now see what’s coming, just to cheer us up a bit.”
The first heavy drops of a pelting storm splashed down on deck, and soon the boys had not only the spray from the sea but also rain slashing their faces whenever they turned to windward.
“I don’t think I’ll play at this any longer,” said George, glancing up at his chum with a humorous grimace as he toiled away at the pump. “Let’s go home.”
He did not realize quite as well as Jack did how serious was their plight. With anchor gone, sails useless, and a storm driving them away from shelter, to say nothing of the half-swamped condition of their vessel, there was a distinct possibility that neither of them would ever get home again. Though Jack did not show it, he was beginning to feel that their chances were decidedly slender.
“Let me have another go at that pump,” he said, as the sloop recovered somewhat awkwardly from the swirl of a white-capped wave. “Maybe the wind will go down soon, and then we shall manage somehow, but we’ve got to keep busy with the pump.” Little though he liked to think so, he felt sure the sluggish movements of the Sea-Lark were due to her having shipped too much water. His hands were becoming blistered with the task, and his arms ached, but there was no alternative to struggling on. Any moment there might appear the brown sail of a fishing-vessel, and it was this thought which buoyed him up even when things looked blackest. Several hours, however, drifted on before his restless eyes rested on a speck on the horizon and a cry of thankfulness burst from him.
“Oh, gee! there’s a schooner or something!” he shouted, pointing across the wind-swept ocean, away to the east. “If she’s bound for Greenport she will have to cut in close to us when she tacks.”
Their spirits rose high. The speck in the distance steadily increased, until the boys felt certain they must be sighted.