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Bob let draw his jib-sheet, and we stood away towards the southern extremity of the island, which we soon rounded; I remaining still aloft to look out for any sunken rocks that might chance to be lying about. But the bottom was quite clear, the sand being distinctly visible from my post at the mast-head.
So he sat in his chair there, and remembered that he had sold his soul to the devil for twenty years of heart’s-desire; and whatever fears he may have had as to what might come at the end of those twenty years, he found comfort in the thought that, after all, twenty years is a good stretch of time, and that throughout them he could eat, drink, merrymake, roll in gold, dress in silk, and be care-free, heart at ease and jib-sheet to windward.
The doctor was attending to one of the wounded natives, so they did not observe him, perhaps. Although the command was issued in a very uncomplimentary style, Jerry and I agreed that it would be useless to disobey it; so going about, while he stood at the helm, I ran forward and let fly the jib-sheet, while the foresail remained to windward. "Send your boat aboard us," shouted the same voice.
Never shall I forget the last tremendous wave that came down upon me, impelled by a maddening gust which whirled tearing along through the wild air, and scooping its deep passage through the waters. In vain was the jib-sheet let fly; in vain did I luff into the wind.
"Be her a real ship, Master Bob?" asked Dick, having another peep at the suspicious object and still not quite convinced as yet. "Sure-ly?" "Of course she is, I tell you," cried Bob. "Look out now and let go the jib-sheet as I luff up. I'm going to lay-to, for the ship is coming up with us rapidly and will run us down if we don't take care!"
Lewis had not said a word, but I called out to him to shift for himself, and belaying the clew-line, in hauling myself forward of the foremast, I received a blow from the jib-sheet that came near breaking my left arm. I did not feel the effect of this blow at the time, though the arm has since been operated on, to extract a tumour produced by this very injury.
It may be necessary now to mention the relative positions of the parties, the hour, and the precise state of the weather, with a view to give the reader clear ideas of the events that succeeded. Le Feu-Follet had not materially changed her place since her jib-sheet was first hauled over.
"Let go and haul!" was the next word of command; upon which the weather fore-braces were let go and those to leeward hauled in by the men forward under the personal supervision of Mr McCarthy, after which the men boarded the fore-tack and hauled down the jib-sheet, clapping a tackle on it as it blew fresh; and the Nancy Bell, braced round on the starboard tack and with the wind a little more aft than when she was running eastwards just now, stood towards the boat that Kate had been the first to perceive, drifting a bout upon the wild ocean so far away from land.
"Hard-a-lee!" shouted Jasper, letting fly the jib-sheet with his own hands, when the cutter came swiftly up to the breeze, with all her canvas flapping, or was running into the wind's eye, as seamen term it, until the light craft was a hundred feet to windward of her former position.
"The enemy's main yard is cut in two in the slings, sir," reported I, after I had my glass upon her. "Then her last hope is gone," replied Mr Hippesley. "Haul over the starboard jib-sheet forward let her come to, quartermaster. Larboard guns, my lads." "Now, my men," cried Captain Delmar, "make short work of her." This injunction was obeyed.
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