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Updated: May 23, 2025
"If he'd stuck to the boat," said Priscilla, "he'd have been all right. She's ashore this minute on the point of Inishlean. Unless Peter Walsh has gone suddenly mad I can't imagine why he tried to round up the boat there and why he hauled in the main-sheet. He was absolutely bound to go over." "Perhaps he wanted to land there," said Frank.
"Don't be stuffy any longer, Cap'n," he pleaded. "We've gone fur enough. I give up. You are deep-water, all right!" Cap'n Sproul made no reply. Suddenly catching a moment that seemed favorable, he lashed the wheel, and with mighty puffing and grunting "inched" in the main-sheet. "She ought to have a double reef," he muttered. "But them petrified sons of secos couldn't take in a week's wash."
"Give her a little more main-sheet, Kennedy," was the skipper's reply, as the yacht passed the Head, and he kept her away a little. "Eleven thirty," mused Mr. Norwood, who had taken out his gold watch, and noted the moment when the Maud passed the headland.
While I pressed her under and debated whether I should give up or not, the Chinese cried for mercy. I think it was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. And then, and not until then, did I luff up and ease out the main-sheet. The Reindeer righted very slowly, and when she was on an even keel was so much awash that I doubted if she could be saved.
"Get up ze mainsail and break out ze hook!" the Frenchman shouted. "And den tail on to ze Reindeer! No side-lights!" "Come! Cast off those gaskets lively!" 'Frisco Kid ordered. "Now lay on to the peak-halyards there, that rope cast it off the pin. And don't hoist ahead of me. There! Make fast! We 'll stretch it afterwards. Run aft and come in on the main-sheet! Shove the helm up!"
The seizure of the whale awoke me, as from a horrible nightmare, to the fearful peril to which we still remained exposed; and I jammed the helm hard up, and wore the craft sharp round on her heel until dead before the wind, when I eased off the main-sheet, and we hurried as fast as the wind would take us away from the spot.
He took a hitch of the main-sheet round his finger, that, should the breeze freshen, he might be roused, in case he should go to sleep; and, having taken this precaution, in a few minutes the boat was steering herself.
Thanking Heaven for a renewed chance of escape, and lamenting over the fate of the unprepared Jackson, who had evidently been upset, from the main-sheet having been jammed, Newton resolved to make for one of the English isles, which he knew to be about two hundred miles distant. The oars had been lost, but the rudder of the boat was fortunately made fast by a pennant.
"It sounds fair sailing; but I liken it to going blindly into a trap," retorted the captain. "Haul on the main-sheet! Steady, forward, with the jib!" And the pilot starboarded his helm. Again the captain shivered. Who was this, who held death so lightly? His own gloomy forebodings came upon him with redoubled force. What manner of pilot was this, to whom night was as day?
By fully half a point it outpointed the Reindeer, and I began to feel respect for the clumsy craft. Realizing the hopelessness of the pursuit, I filled away, threw out the main-sheet, and drove down before the wind upon the junks to leeward, where I had them at a disadvantage.
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