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Updated: May 8, 2025
Altogether I have never passed a more uncomfortable night perhaps never one during which I was in greater peril. The wind was shifting bit by bit, too. My compass told me that the Wavecrest was now being driven straight out to sea, instead of running parallel with the Massachusetts coast as had been at first the fact. How fast I was traveling I could not guess.
And this craft in which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my little Wavecrest. As I watched her I saw that her navigator had espied the coming tempest from the south and the crew began to swarm among the sails.
The Wavecrest was bowling along nicely so I could give my attention to the big ship, which I soon made out to be the Peveril. Old Tom was right. She was one of the Bayne Line ships, coming from Boston coming from home, as you might say! To tell the truth, I was a good bit home-sick. I let my mind wander back to Bolderhead.
In letting out the cable by which the sloop was moored, I had increased the strain upon it. I should have thrown out a stern anchor as well when I came aboard the Wavecrest to spend the night. The tug of wind and tide had been too much for the single cable. And now my bonnie Wavecrest was swinging about, broadside to the sea, and likely to be rolled over completely in a moment.
Below, the ports were open, their steel shutters let down on their chains like drop-shelves. Some of the crew were looking out idly upon the Wavecrest as the steamship slipped by. A cook in a white cap came to one port and threw some slop into the sea. As he emptied the bucket my eyes roved to the very next port aft. There somebody sat peeling vegetables.
I did not read for long. Used to the swing of the sea as I had been for years the bucking of the Wavecrest as she tugged at her cable, put me to sleep before I had any idea that I was sleepy. And my lamp was left burning. I do not know how long I was unconscious at least, I did not know at the moment of my awakening; but suddenly something bumped against the sloop's counter.
There seemed to be some idea still in her mind that it was my reckless disposition more than the crime of another, that had set me adrift in the Wavecrest. She spoke of "Mr. Downes' great trouble" and of "poor Paul" as though they were both to be pitied. Otherwise she did not touch on the topic of my having been cut adrift by my cousin, or his emissaries.
It had not crossed my mind at the time, but when I had slipped out to the Wavecrest that evening, giving my mother and the servants the impression that I had gone to my room as usual, I had done a very foolish if not wrong thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise.
I was sure that this was the beginning of the equinoctial gale. It might be a week before the storm would break. And where would the Wavecrest be in a week's time? Not that I really believed the sloop would hold together, or still be on top of the sea, when this gale blew itself out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea.
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