Bahama Bill, Mate of the Wrecking Sloop Sea-Horse

by T. Jenkins Hains

With all sail he stood down the channel, and was beginning to haul up on the Sea-Horse, when she took the first of the southerly wind coming over the reef. This had given her a good start, and she was now about a mile to windward, and going like mad to the eastward, across the Gulf Stream.

"Clap everything you can on her," begged the marshal; "put out the awning, tarpaulins, anything that will drive us. It's a thousand dollars reward if we land them, and I'll split even with you if we do."

The captain of the Silver Bar needed no urging. He wanted that five hundred. He would have to go, anyway, and here was the chance of the season. He broke out jib-topsails, stretched his mainsail to the utmost, and trimmed his canvas for the struggle, setting a club-topsail aft and a working one forward, with a big maintopmast staysail. He was soon making the most of the lively breeze, and plunging through the blue water to the tune of ten knots, heading right into the wake of the flying Sea-Horse.

The wrecking-sloop, leaning well down to the now freshening gale, tore a way through the Gulf Stream, sending the spray flying over her in a constant shower. She headed well up, a trifle closer than the schooner, and she waded through it like a live thing. Her rough gear, meant for work and hard usage, stood her in good stead in the heavy water off shore.

All the lines stretching taut as bow-strings to the pressure made a musical humming which sounded pleasantly upon the ears of the listening men aft. They still held their weapons in readiness, but it was evident that Bahama Bill was going to send his favourite through to a finish in a style fitting her record.

With one hand upon the wheel-spokes, he lounged upon the steering-gear, nor ducked nor winced as the rifle projectiles now and again sang past. The range was getting too great to be dangerous, and the ammunition of the marshal was getting low. Finally the fire astern ceased, and the two vessels raced silently across the Stream, each striving to the utmost for the objective point, the Great Bahama Bank, seventy miles away, due east.

Once upon the shoal, the wrecker would have the advantage, for he knew the Bank well, and could follow channels which the heavier schooner would almost certainly fetch up in. The marshal knew this, and urged the schooner to the limit of her powers.

Away they went across the Stream. The Silver Bar was rooting deeply into the choppy sea, caused by the strong northerly current which flows eternally between the Florida Reef and the Great Bahama Bank. She would plunge headlong, and bury her bows clear to the knightheads, ramming the water so heavily that it burst into a great comber from both sides. Then she would raise her dripping forefoot clear, until one could see under her body aft to the heel of the foremast, rearing up like a spirited horse under the spur. Down she would plunge again with a forward lunge, and every line of standing rigging would set like a bar with the strain.

Fields, the marshal, was getting all he could out of her, and she was gradually hauling up in the wake of the wrecker. Before the sun sank in the west she was less than half a mile astern, and coming along handsomely.

Smart, on the Sea-Horse, trimmed his canvas, stretched the peak of the mainsail, and sweated the topsail sheet and tack until the lines would stand no more. The Sea-Horse was literally flying through it, and her heavy build caused her to strike the seas with a smash which flung the spray in showers.