The men came aft and got ready the boat and stood aft, prepared for the command to back the maintopsail. Again Hardy levelled the glass. The girl—for we know who it was—had ceased to flutter her handkerchief; but the wind, full of wet, bewildered the eye, and the mate would make no more of it than this: the figure was a woman.
He headed the York so as to heave to to windward of the brig, and a little while before the topsail-yard was backed Hardy had seen and mentally kissed the poor girl's face in the lens, and frantic with joy was waving his cap to her, whilst she, guessing who it would be that motioned thus, tossed her handkerchief again and again.
The ship was brought to a stand, and Hardy shouted, "I am coming to fetch you."
She waved her hand. There was an ugly bit of sea between for a boat, choppy, with deep sucking hollows, and plenty of spiteful foam to whiten over the low gunwales.
"Who'll volunteer?" said Hardy. "Three will do."
"Blast me," said one of them, "if I don't feel as I should be in the road in a boat."
"You're likely," said Hardy, pointing to another—"and you, and you. Three will do, and it shall be two pound a man, which God knows I wouldn't offer for a deed of duty, only you're lowered by the captain's drug."
"Right y' are, sir," said Jim, who got in the boat and was followed by Tom and Joe.
The mate sprang into the stern-sheets and shipped the rudder.
"Lower away handsomely!" he shouted, "and drop the hauling part that we may overhaul the falls."