“Five-fifty-seven!” called the timekeeper.
Off to port the skipper saw the water scuffed up, as if a thousand silvery fishes suddenly sprang up.
“Here she comes,” Kenneth said to himself, “and she’s a hummer!”
All at once the blast struck them.
Whoo!
The “Gazelle” laid over before it till her lee freeboard, high as it was, was buried under, and the water lapped alongside the deckhouse. The boat fairly flew along, great sheets of spray shooting out from her bow, the sails standing stiff as if moulded out of metal. “His Nibs,” towed behind, was almost lost in the smother of spray, and her painter stretched out to the larger boat straight and stiff as a steel rod, without a sag in it.
My, she was going!
The “Gazelle” was over-canvassed for such a blow, but she could not stop then.
Kenneth sat at the tiller like a jockey on a racing horse—his gaze fixed, his face pale, his muscles tense. Ready to luff and save his boat, if need be, but determined to drive her to the finish if steady canvas and honest manila could stand the strain.
“You can’t do it, Ken!” Frank cried.