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We all laid into the canvas like mad, and in no time had snugged down to a staysail and the peak of our mainsail. Thrackles drew his knife and jumped for the cable, while Handy Solomon, his eyes snapping, seized the wheel. We finished just in time. I was turning away after tying the last gasket on the foresail, when the deck up-ended and tipped me headforemost into the starboard scupper.
The two principal salt-water craft that have a history behind them and a sphere of active usefulness to-day are the schooner and its tender, the little dory. A schooner is a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel with at least two masts and four sails mainsail, foresail, jib, and the staysail generally called a wind-bag. The schooner rig makes the handiest all-round vessel known.
By the time that all this was done, Mr Howard had got our new fore-topmast on end and rigged, the topsail-yard aloft and secured, and the topsail, fore-topmast staysail, and jib set, when we at once filled on the ship and hauled our wind in pursuit of the Indiamen, Mr Percival having received orders to follow us as soon as he could make sail.
Her banging canvas filled, she listed over, and it was evident to all of them that if the kedge started she would forthwith drive ashore. Tense with strain, its warp ripped out of the water, and she was swinging on it heading for the beach when Wyllard flung himself upon the wheel. "Hang on to every inch or break it!" he roared. "Out main-boom; box your jib and staysail up to weather!"
The pilot was prepared for what was to follow; and, at a sign from his young commander, the rag of sail that had so long been set was taken in. At that moment, Jasper, watching his time, put the helm up; the head of a staysail was loosened forward, and the light cutter, as if conscious she was now under the control of familiar hands, fell off, and was soon in the trough of the sea.
Meanwhile, the first lieutenant and boatswain were busy forward with the forecastle hands, seeing to the catting and fishing of the anchor; and, as soon as our port bower was properly secured by the aid of the cathead stopper and shank painter, the courses, which were all ready to let fall, were dropped and sheeted home, topgallants and royals spread, and the jib and foretopmast staysail set, as well as the spanker aft, the old Candahar being presently under a cloud of canvas alow and aloft, and slowly but surely making an offing and reaching out to sea.
In the mean time, the jib had been furled and the staysail set, and the ship under her reduced sail had got more upright, and was under management; but the two top-gallant-sails were still hanging in the buntlines, and slatting and jerking as though they would take the masts out of her.
Still, foot by foot they got the black canvas up, and then, leaving the peak hanging, ran forward to the boom-foresail, which was smaller and lighter. They set that, cast two jibs and the staysail loose, and let them lie. Wyllard sat down feeling that the thing they had done would, if attempted in cold blood, have appeared almost impossible.
I went aft, and there was a man leaning over the wheel, with his legs apart and both hands hanging down in the light from the binnacle, and his sou'wester over his eyes. Then I went forward, and there was a man at the lookout, with his back against the foremast, getting what shelter he could from the staysail. I knew by his small height that he was not one of the Benton boys.
Whilst supper was getting, I walked the deck with Wilkinson, both of us keeping a bright look-out, for it was blowing fresh; the darkness lay thick about us, there might be ice near us, and the schooner was storming under her reefed mainsail, topsail, and staysail through the hollow seas, thundering with a great roaring seething noise into the trough, and lifting to the foaming slope with her masts wildly aslant.
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