"How's she headed?" called the Captain again. "Is she still on her port tack, or running before the wind?"
"Still beating up to the west!" the sailor replied.
"Good," cried Job. "They think they can outsail us. Keep her in sight and sing out if you see her fall off the wind!"
Half an hour later the watch was changed and Jeremy scrambled into his warm bunk for a few hours more sleep.
It was broad daylight when he and Tom reached the deck once more and went eagerly forward to join the little knot of seamen in the bows. All eyes were turned toward the horizon, ahead, where the sails of the fleeing schooner loomed gray in the morning haze.
The wind which had shifted a little to the north was still blowing stiffly, heeling both sloops over at a sharp angle. The Tiger had gained somewhat during the morning watch, but the pirates had now evidently become desperate and put on all the sail their craft would carry, so that the two vessels sped on, league after league, without apparent change of position.
Job, who had now taken the tiller again, called to Jeremy after a while. "Here, lad," he said, when the boy reached the poop, "lend me a hand with this kicker."
Jeremy laid hold with a will, and found that it took almost all his strength, along with that of the powerful Captain, to hold the schooner on her course. At times, when a big beam sea caught her, she would yaw fearfully, falling off several points, and could only be brought back to windward by jamming the thrashing rudder hard over.
"We lose headway when she does that, don't we, Job?" panted the boy after one such effort. "And I reckon we couldn't lash the beam fast to keep her this way, could we? No, I see, it has to be free so as to move all the time. Still——"
As he staggered to and fro at the end of the tiller, the boy thought rapidly. Finally he recommenced: "Job—this may sound foolish to you—but why couldn't we lash her on both sides, and yet give her play—look—this way! Rig a little pulley here and one here——" He indicated places on the deck, close to the rail on either quarter. "Then reeve a line from the tiller-end through each one, and bring it back with three or four turns around a windlass drum, a little way for'ard, there. Then you could keep hold of the arms of the windlass, and only let the tiller move as much as you needed to, either way——"