“Oh, we’ve got to put them back where we get them from, when we are through,” laughed Mr. Carleton. “Let’s untie the stops in this mainsail now. We’ll run it up only a little way, enough to drift down out of sight of any one from shore here. I want to light a cabin lamp, and I shouldn’t dare to do it here, though I guess every one’s gone to bed.”
There was certainly no sign of life in and about the town. There was not a fisherman in the harbour. Not even a light gleamed from a cottage window. Southport had gone to bed. It was a gloomy sort of night, too, with the black clouds wheeling along overhead, and only the uncertain glimmering of the stars in the shifting patches of blue to relieve the dreariness. Harry Brackett wondered what time he would get back home.
“It’s getting late,” he suggested.
“Well, it won’t take us long,” replied Mr. Carleton. “There, the sail’s free. Get forward and cast that mooring off, while I start the sail up a bit.”
Harry Brackett quickly gave the word that the Viking had dropped its mooring. Mr. Carleton gave another vigorous haul on the halyards, made them fast, and sprang to the wheel. They ran down to where the rowboat lay, and picked that up. But then, Mr. Carleton, strangely enough, ran the sail up more than “a little way.” In fact, as it bagged out with a sharp flaw of the night-wind, the Viking shot ahead quickly and was almost instantly under full headway, gliding rapidly out from the shore.
“We’ve got to get that sail up still more,” exclaimed Mr. Carleton. “We don’t need it, but it’s dangerous sailing this way. However, we will get there all the quicker. You pull on those halyards when I head up into the wind.”
Harry Brackett, knowing little of what he was doing, complied.
“Now break into that cabin,” commanded Mr. Carleton. “There’s a hatchet under that seat. It’s all right. It’s a cheap lock. We’ve got to get in there.”
Harry Brackett hesitated. Was it going a bit too far?
“Hurry up, there!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton, impatiently. “We mustn’t lose any time.”