“I’d take in every stitch of canvas but the jib and mainsail, sir, and reef those down to just enough to keep her steady. Then I’d ease her off a point or two from her course; it’ll keep her from diving into the seas that are threatening to swamp her.”
“It’ll keep her off shore and give us more sea room,” he admitted, “and as neither of us is acquainted in here, it isn’t a bad idea;” and then he gave the orders necessary to put my suggestions into execution.
For hours we kept on under the reefed canvas, the storm scarcely changing in its violence. Drenched to the skin, chilled to the bone, hungry from long fasting, we were in poor condition to meet the night which was now fast approaching. Since noon our hatches had been lashed down, and we knew nothing of what was going on in the cabin. If the skipper had aroused sufficiently to realize we were struggling with the tempest, he gave no signs of it.
We looked for no help from him. Still, assistance was to be providentially furnished us.
“Sloop ahoy!” shouted the forward lookout.
“Where away?” asked Master Marshall, hastening towards the bow.
“Two points off our larboard, and bearing straight down this way, sir,” was the reply.
“She’s a pilot boat, sir,” Bill Howard declared a moment later to me. “I’ve seen ’em too many times in here to be mistaken.”
He was right, for within five minutes she had run near enough for her commander to hail us in English and ask if we wished him to send a man on board.
“Yes, sir,” responded Master Marshall at the top of his lungs. Then he said to me in lower tones: “This is a Godsend, Master Dunn, though I don’t see how he can put a man aboard of us. No boat can live in this sea.”