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But he could not take his eyes off her finely shaped figure in the light summer dress, her determined little face and proud eyes, as she sat looking to windward, while her little hand in its strong leather glove held the mainsheet. He wanted to talk to her and was purposely clumsy in tacking; then she scolded him as if he were a cabin boy, which amused him immensely.
Moses will give you the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run down alongside the mast.
The Captain fumbled away at his waist-band encircling a rotundity like that described of Saint Nicholas and pulled out his immense gold turnip. "Columbus' compass! Twenty minutes to five! Come, Walter, haul in the mainsheet, and come up to the wind. Are you ready to go about? Well, down with the helm then. I'll tend the jib.
There was no breeze in the air, and the little deep vessel swung slightly to the breathing of the sea. Her great mainsail and her baloon-jib came over lazily as she swung, and filled themselves with the cheating semblance of a wind. The boom creaked in the goose-neck, and at every roll the slack of the mainsheet tautened with a kind of little thud which thrilled the deck behind me.
Bring the slate; we'll have to start our dead reckoning right away." The distance run since the departure was read off the log by the binnacle light and entered on the slate. "Ready about," said the captain. "Give me the wheel, White Man, and you stand by the mainsheet. Boom tackle, Mr. Hay, please, and then you can jump forward and attend head sails." "Ay, ay, sir," responded Herrick.
But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked: "Was my father on deck?"
Away sped the boat to the southward and westward, careening gunwale-to, and sending the spray flying in such drenching showers over the weather bow, that presently the water rose above the bottom boards and splashed like a miniature sea in the lee bilge, compelling Dick to abandon the mainsheet to Stukely while he took a bucket and proceeded to bale.
'We must jibe, said Davies: 'just take the helm, will you? and, without waiting for my co-operation, he began hauling in the mainsheet with great vigour. I had rude notions of steering, but jibing is a delicate operation. No yachtsman will be surprised to hear that the boom saw its opportunity and swung over with a mighty crash, with the mainsheet entangled round me and the tiller.
"Do you know I saved your life?" returned the other, not deigning to look at him, his eyes travelling instead between the compass and the sails. "Where would you have been if that boom had swung out and you bundled in the slack? No, sir, we'll have no more of you at the mainsheet. Seaport towns are full of mainsheet-men; they hop upon one leg, my son, what's left of them, and the rest are dead.
But even this was a task heavy as the mainsheet was with rain, and rattling in a considerable wind almost beyond her strength; and if it hadn't been that a kindly personage who saw the little maid's difficulty gave her assistance, she might not have been able to accomplish it.
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