The next morning all hands were up early and were greeted as they came on deck by a spanking southwest wind. It was more than a breeze; it might be ranked as a reefing wind, but the “Gazelle” was under-canvassed and so hoisted full sail safely. The whole aspect of the sea had changed. Deep, blue and rippling under the steady wind, it had lost the brazen glare of the day before. The palms along shore waved their graceful fronds in gentle salutation, and the white-crested breakers made obeisance at their feet.
“Up anchor, and away, boys!” Kenneth shouted, exhilarated by the ozone in the air. Frank and Arthur started to work the small hand windlass. “Put your backs to it, boys; we’ll be off the sooner.”
In a minute the anchor broke ground, the yacht began to pay off, and was under way in earnest.
“Gee! this is better than your old shark-towing scheme,” Arthur said, as he and Frank coiled down the gear and made all snug for the long day’s run. “There’s nothing like a wind-jammer, say I.”
“Right you are, Art,” Frank acknowledged. “My! I am hungry, though; my breastbone is flat against my spine.”
“Well, it’s up to you, old man,” Kenneth sang out from his place in the cockpit. “Chase it along; I feel as if I could eat Arthur’s shark.”
As the day wore on, the waves grew larger, long, rounded rollers, that at times crested and were blown into spray by the wind. Huge, tumbling, rolling hills they were, like great playfellows, mighty but amiable. The boys felt a kind of fellowship for them, and enjoyed watching the blue-green slopes that rose and fell, now hiding the land from them, now lifting boat and all to a watery height, widening the horizon and giving the boys little thrills of delight as they coasted down into the hollows again.
Hour after hour they sailed on, the wind steady and true from the southwest, so that only the slightest shift of the helm was necessary, and ’tending sheet became a sinecure. The “Gazelle” even acted as if she were enjoying herself. She ran up the hill of one wave and down the slope of another, like a frolicsome dolphin with a superabundance of animal spirits. Indeed, the porpoises seemed to recognize in her a playfellow, for they somersaulted along in company with her for hours, mocked at her grace, raced with her and dove under her, for all the world like children at play.
“Jiminy! let’s have a swim with ’em,” said Arthur, who, fascinated by their easy antics, was positively envious. “If I could swim like that, I wouldn’t mind turning my feet into fins one bit.”
The delights of that day’s sail would fill a book. The strange fish which they caught glimpses of as the yawl flew along, brilliantly colored and flashing like jewels in the clear depths; schools of flying-fish, strange, spectre-like creatures, sprang out of the blue and scudded a hundred feet or so clear of the waves, then dropped as suddenly as they had risen, into their native element again.