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All that I could do was to take in the great lateen sail and secure it, and substitute for it, if I could, some very much smaller piece of canvas, that, while sufficient to save her from being overrun by the furious sea, would not be too big for the felucca to carry.
The dingy fleet blossoms into a cloud of canvas, with every boat headed for Marichchikkaddi, the instant the "cease work" gun is fired. The scene suggests a regatta on a gigantic scale, and from a distance the leaning lug and lateen sails of the East give the idea of craft traveling at terrific speed. It is a regatta, a free-for-all, devil-take-the-hindmost affair.
"Hamza must be very grateful to you!" she said, slowly. Baroudi made no reply. She looked away over the wild geraniums, down the alley between the trees to the hollow in the river-bank, and she saw a lateen sail glide by, and vanish behind the trees, going towards the south. In a moment another came, then a third, a fourth. The fourth was orange-coloured.
The lateen masts, gracefully tilted forward, with their points blunt and fat, looked like a forest of headless lances. The tarred ropes twined and intertwined like lichens and vines.
It was very true; a galliot and four lateen vessels had just made their appearance round the easternmost point, and as soon as they observed the frigate, had hauled their wind. In a minute the Aurora was under a press of canvas, and the telescopes were all directed to the vessels. "All deeply laden, sir," observed Mr Hawkins, the chaplain; "how the topsail of the galliot is scored!"
Finding themselves unobserved, for they had taken the precaution to pull only two oars in each boat, they dropped gently alongside one of the double-masted lateen vessels, and Mesty stepped on board. He peeped down in the cabin, and perceived a man lying on the lockers; he came up in his stealthy manner, closed the hatch softly, and said, "all right."
In the orange colored dawn which always comes through the mists of that bay, the fishing fleet would crawl in under triangular lateen sails, for the fishermen of San Francisco Bay are all Neapolitans, who have brought their costumes and sail with lateen rigs shaped like the ear of a horse when the wind fills them and stained an orange brown.
Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up the donkeys and tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and got under way.
The boat was what is called a speronaro; an open boat worked with oars, but with a lateen sail at the same time when the breeze served. Lothair admired the trim of the vessel, and got talking with the men as they ate their bread and olives, and a small fish or two. "And your lateen sail ?" continued Lothair.
Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up the donkeys and tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and got under way.
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