Our Mr. Barney stood right beside me as I manipulated the Gullwing’s helm. He watched the handling of our rival with lowering brow.
“Gimme that wheel!” he snapped, pushing me away and seizing the spokes. The Gullwing was right in the eye of the wind. Cap’n Bowditch was shouting his orders. If the Seamew had rounded prettily, the Gullwing went her one better. We wasted less time hanging in the wind than the Seamew.
“That’s the way to do it!” bawled our skipper, dancing on the quarter. “By jinks, Mr. Barney, you handled that wheel well. Keep her so! Steady.”
The second mate let me take the wheel again after a minute or two; and his face had remained unsmiling all the time. He had merely been determined to show them all that he could handle the big ship’s helm as well in every particular as did his brother.
Our course was west-northwest now to the Capes of Virginia. The fresh gale was out of the same quarter. Therefore we had to beat to windward all the remainder of the race, and although the Seamew had gotten a little the start of us, the Gullwing had a slight advantage. She handled better to windward than her sister ship.
The Seamew stood off on one tack, we on the other. She disappeared beyond the sea line, but standing in some hours later we found her again—and finding her were pleased more than a little in seeing that we had made something up on her. Our skipper’s shrewdness was telling.
I knew how it was with Cap’n Si; when things broke wrong for him he paddled about the deck, cursing the hands and the wind and various other things, altogether irrational. Whereas our skipper never lost a trick, kept his head, and never gave an order he was sorry for—and that last is saying a good deal.
We filled away once more and stood back to her. We were making distance fast. Had we held on this time we should have crossed her wake almost under her stern. The man aloft suddenly sang out:
“Land, ho!”
I heard the cry repeated in the Seamew’s tops.