“Trim in that sheet and help me in, will you, you duffers? Do you think I am doing this for your amusement?”
So they hauled in the boom and the dangling captain with it, and landed him safely on deck without a scratch.
With her head turned away from the shoal, the “Gazelle” ran off into deeper water. It was a narrow escape for all hands, but especially so for Ransom, whose quickness in grasping the spar as it swung over saved his life. Soon he could laugh with the boys over his funny appearance. But he realized, as they could not, by what a narrow margin he escaped.
After rounding Cape Romain, the “Gazelle” sailed along without a mishap of any kind for a day; then the barometer indicated that there was trouble brewing—in fact, the very atmosphere had the feeling of suppressed excitement that almost always precedes a severe storm. Ransom decided that it would be wise to get into a sheltered spot, so he steered for the mouth of Cape Fear River. It was a most difficult place to get into; but once inside, the yacht was perfectly protected from any kind of storm except, perhaps, a cyclone.
No sooner had the anchor been dropped than the wind began to raise its voice from the soft whir-r-r of the summer breeze, to the shrill, high shriek of the gale.
“For once,” said the skipper, “my foresight was better than my hindsight.”
“Good work, old man. I always knew you were a wonder,” Frank laughed. “All the same I’m glad we’re inside.”
“Mate, put this man in irons. He shall live on bread and water for ten days, due punishment for insubordination and disrespect for a superior officer.” Kenneth put on a very grave and judicial air, but could not quite control a twitching of the corners of his mouth, which enlarged to a wide grin when the mate, in obedience to his command, tackled the “crew,” and in the scuffle that followed went overboard with his prisoner.
“Never mind the water, mate,” Ransom called when the two dripping boys reached the deck. “He has had enough of that, perhaps.”
For a week the “Gazelle” lay stormbound off the little town of Southport, on the Cape Fear River. In spite of the rain which fell almost continuously, the boys explored every nook and cranny of the harbor, and pushed up the shallow creeks, and examined the sand hills that protected the shipping from the onslaught of the ocean.