“Well, try ten yards nearer; there, halt. Now try.”
We all strained our eyes. I thought it read, Wave.
“No, Robert, it is not Wave.—Come, boys, sharpen your eyes on the sides of your noses, and try again.”
“I can read it,” shouted Harry Higginson, throwing up his hat. “Youth! Youth!—that’s it.”
“Yes, that’s it. Hurrah for you, Master Harry! I promote you on the spot captain of the maintop.”
We hurried down to a white sand-beach on which lay a punt. In that the Captain pulled us, three at a time, out to the Youth. When well under sail and standing out for more open water, our good skipper at the tiller, having filled his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and tautened the sheet a bit, said—
“Boys, this craft is yours, but I am Commodore until each and all of you have learned to sail her as well as I can. May you prove quick to learn, and I quick to teach. But as I’m an old seadog, my pipe is out already. Give us a light, shipmate?”—I was trying with flint and steel to strike a few sparks into our old tinder-box—“there!—puff—puff—puff—that will do. I must talk less and smoke more.”
As the jolly Captain got up a storm of smoke, slapped me a stinger on the knee, and winked at the pennant, Mr Clare jumped up, and swinging his hat, cried—
“Boys, let’s give cheers, three rousing cheers, for our brave boat, the Youth, and her good master, Captain Mugford!”
And didn’t we give them!!!