'Below there!' roared Jacob; 'look out for these duds!' and down came first his boots, then his cap, then his coat, and then his waistcoat. 'I'll jump overboard from this 'ere quarter!' he bawled. 'Stand by to pick me up!'
The released helm had suffered the barque to come up into the wind, and she lay aback with a very slow leewardly trend. The breeze held the water briskly rippling, but the plain of the ocean was wonderfully smooth, with a faint, scarce noticeable swell lightly breathing in it.
'Mr. Tregarthen,' exclaimed Abraham, 'you'll pull a stouter oar than Miss Nielsen. Supposin' the lady stands by that there painter?'
'Right!' I exclaimed, and on the girl entering the bows Abraham and I seized an oar apiece in readiness for Jacob's leap.
We lay close alongside, so that nothing was visible save the length of the ship's black side and her overhanging yardarms, and the thick lines of her shrouds rising to the lower mastheads. It was a breathless time. I had no fear for Jacob; I guessed that the imprisoned wretches would be too dazed by the glaring sunshine and by the fresh air and by their deliverance from the stifling, smoke-thickened gloom of the forecastle to catch him even should they pursue him ere he jumped. Nevertheless, those moments of waiting, of expectation, of suspense, strung the nerves to the tension of fiddle-strings, and sensation was sharpened into anguish.
Not more than three minutes elapsed—yet it seemed an hour. Then in a hoarse roar right over our heads sounded a shout:
'Look out, now!'
'Let go!' shrieked Abraham.
Helga dropped the line that held the boat.
'Back astarn, now!'