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At four bells we hove the log, and she was going eleven knots fairly; and had it not been for the sea from aft which sent the chip home, and threw her continually off her course, the log would have shown her to have been going somewhat faster. I went to the wheel with a young fellow from the Kennebec, Jack Stewart, who was a good helmsman, and for two hours we had our hands full.
"Now is your time, lads; jump for your lives!" exclaimed George in a low, excited tone; and, setting his men the example, he forthwith sprang from his own ship's bulwarks to those of the brig; and dashing at the helmsman, cut him down with his cutlass before the fellow could recover sufficiently from his astonishment to utter a cry.
A final glance at the galley showed George that her oarsmen were still pulling slow and that there was ample room for the galleon to cross her bows; he therefore signed to the helmsman and the great ship went surging past, while her ordnance, great and small, belched forth a perfect tornado of bullets, nails, jagged fragments of iron and what not upon the deck of the devoted craft.
A glance at the aneroid, which was fixed in the companion-way, so as to be visible to the helmsman, revealed the fact that the pointer of the instrument had gone considerably back; and this, together with the threatening aspect of the heavens, made me fear that we were about to have a very unpleasant break in the fine weather we had been favoured with since entering the Pacific.
It is at the bend of the river. We turn now, and head for the bay." As he spoke they all became aware of a sudden swerve in the course of the submarine. The helmsman had, doubtless, noted the "water-mark," as Tom termed it, and as an automobilist on land might swing at the cross-roads, the steersman was changing the course of his craft.
The launch had in the meantime been once more got before the wind, and was again flying to leeward under jib and fore-sail, the mountain-seas pursuing her and necessitating the utmost watchfulness on the part of the helmsman to prevent her from being broached-to.
Estein laughed. "I see that I am with a skilful helmsman," he said. "And I, that I am with an over-confident crew," she answered. Only a distant corncrake broke the silence of the lonely channel, its note sounding more faintly as they left the land behind.
'It is time I protect my wife's name from you, and by God, I will do it! At that M'sieu' Doltaire laugh, and Cournal turn to him, and say, 'Batard! The Intendant have out his sword, and he roar in a hoarse voice, 'Dog, you shall die! But M'sieu' Doltaire strike up his sword, and face the drunken man. 'No, leave that to me. The King's cause goes shipwreck; we can't change helmsman now.
No sooner had the engine-room received the order to submerge than the captain followed his helmsman down the conning-tower hatch, and he lost not a second in getting to the periscope the eye of his vessel. Soon my attention was arrested by the sight of two men sitting side by side turning two large wheels.
Having read Gil Bias, however, I felt an irrepressible passion for adventure, which nothing could divert; in fact, I was as much the creature of the impulse it excited, as the ship is of the helmsman, or the steam-engine of the principle that guides it.
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