"Keep her well full," said D—— to the helmsman. The man kept her half a point more free. The current boiled, and eddied, and bubbled, as all swift running water will do; and when again it caught the cutter's bow, we could all feel the shock just as if she had touched a sand-bank.
"Blow, sweet breeze," said D——, half to himself, half aloud; and casting his eyes, alternately from the flying jib and foresail to the swelling gaff-topsail, stooped down and looked under the boom at the land.
"Steady,—the helm," exclaimed the pilot, as he still stood to windward, holding the bulwarks and bending slightly over the bow.
"Steady, sir," answered the helmsman.
Scarcely had the man made answer, than a puff filled every stitch of canvass, and the cutter yielding to its pressure, leaned over and shot, like a shaft, right into the middle of the channel.
"She'll do it now," said R—— to D——.
"She will, my Lord," replied D——, "if this puff holds ten minutes."
The wind did hold; and behaving well on this, her first tack, and edging up in the wind's eye whenever she could get the chance, the impatient cutter seemed willing to clear the channel on her second tack. The pilot made much of the narrow berth, and ran close to the shore.
"I suppose the water is pretty deep here, eh?" asked R——, addressing himself to D——.
"Oh! yes, my Lord; or the pilot would——"