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Then two men jumped over the cockpit-rail and came into the cabin. "Bli' me, if 'ere they ain't snoozin'," said the first of the newcomers, deftly rolling 'Frisco Kid out of his blankets with one hand and reaching for the wine-bottle with the other. French Pete put his head up on the other side of the centerboard, his eyes heavy with sleep, and made them welcome.
"Then jump down and lift it before it strikes another and bends!" cried Vane. "She's far enough to windward to keep off the beach without it." Carroll went below and hove up the centerboard, which projected several feet beneath the bottom of the craft; but he was not satisfied that the sloop was far enough off the beach, as Vane seemed to be, and he got out into the well as soon as possible.
"If you make any attempt to use that pistol I will disable you at once." With a muttered imprecation the man let the pistol fall and, seizing the oars, began rowing for the shore. "Shall we follow him?" asked Rand. "There is a sand-bar there, I think," replied the colonel. "If you pull up the centerboard, perhaps we can slide over it.
Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going to windward, for Vane was handling her with nerve and skill. She had almost cleared the point when there was a rattle and a bang inside of her. Carroll started. "It's the centerboard coming up! It must have touched a boulder!"
Paul Fairfax and I went to the same school, lived next door to each other, and "chummed it" together. By saving money, by earning more, and by each of us foregoing a bicycle on his birthday, we had collected the purchase-price of the Mist, a beamy twenty-eight-footer, sloop-rigged, with baby topsail and centerboard.
Pashy says Luther don't say much more, but she jedges, from what he does say, that some of the men hung on with him for a while, but was washed off and drownded." "That's right; there was four or five there when we saw her fust. 'Twas Lute's grip on the centerboard that saved him. It's an awful thing awful!" "Yes, and he would have gone, too, if it hadn't been for you.
"There are thousands of big rats here. I'm afraid of them." He nodded, ran close in, spilled the wind from his sail, the boat's way carrying it gently to her. "Shove out its bow," he commanded. "That's right. I don't want to break my centerboard.... An' then jump aboard in the stern quick! alongside of me." She obeyed, stepping in lightly beside him.
They also became skillful sailors and builders of small craft, and it is not surprising to learn that Jacocks Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the centerboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer to the wind. They are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the credit of being the originators of the idea.
When he looked again there was but one, a figure sprawled along the keel, clinging to the centerboard. The flying dory bore down upon the lifeboat, and the Captain risked what little breath he had in a hail. The clinging figure raised its head, and Captain Eri felt an almost selfish sense of relief to see that it was Luther Davis. If it had to be but one, he would rather it was that one.
The locker cushions on which he lay felt unpleasantly damp; his blankets, which were not much drier, smelt moldy; and there was a dismal splash and gurgle of water among the timbers of the plunging craft. Now and then a jet of it shot up between the joints of the flooring or spouted through the opening made for the lifting-gear in the centerboard trunk.
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