a reason for being in a hurry.
Long ago the Amazon had been sighted, sailing fast down the lake, along the farther shore. The explorers on Wild Cat Island had slept so well that there was never any chance that they could beat Nancy and Peggy Blackett in getting first to Horseshoe Cove. Nancy had said Amazon would be there first, and she would be, first by any amount. But that was not all. Captain John had seen what a good wind she had out there. Through the telescope he had seen that there were pretty big waves on that side of the lake. From the rock above the harbour he had watched Amazon race past Cormorant Island and on and on until she reached the narrow entrance into Horseshoe Cove. Then, watching through the telescope, he had seen how Nancy and Peggy jibed her smartly, brought the sail over on the other side, and shot out of sight into the little bay. While he was watching, he was planning, of course, exactly what he would do in sailing Swallow across there. The wind was north-east, so that it was blowing directly from Wild Cat Island to Horseshoe Cove. Captain John made up his mind that he would run down wind to the cove with the sail out on the port side. By doing that, he thought, he would be able to turn into the cove without having to jibe in the rough water and harder wind that he could see that he would find there. He had this plan clear in his mind, and now he wanted to be sailing and getting across there before the wind changed or something happened to make the plan no good. It seemed to him that the wind was getting stronger and he did not want to have to reef when, as he had seen, the Amazon had carried full sail. He wanted to be off at once and to-day everybody else seemed to be busy about something that did not matter at all. It had begun at breakfast when Titty had started making a fuss about torches, as if anybody wanted torches on a summer day. He had been a donkey to give in to her and to let her have his torch to put in with the rest of the luggage.
At last he heard the others coming.
Roger came first with the kettle. Then came Titty with a basket of eggs and a frying-pan. Then Mate Susan with two knapsacks, one full of towels and bathing things, and the other with rations for the expedition. “We shan’t want much,” she had said, “because the Amazons have got to get back to tea.” As she came, she was going over the things she had put in. “Biscuits, bread, seed-cake, spoons, knife, marmalade, butter. . .”
“You haven’t put in egg-cups,” said Roger, “because we don’t have any.”
“Botheration!” said the mate, dumping the knapsacks on the ground and turning to run back to the camp. “I’ve forgotten the salt.”
There was really nothing much in this to bother the captain, but it did bother him all the same. He was in a hurry to sail, and had been waiting a long time, and perhaps it was just that little bit of bad luck in the mate’s forgetting the salt and keeping back the ship for two minutes more that made the captain not quite so careful as usual.
At last everything was stowed, the crew aboard, and Swallow was pushed off, stern-first. And then it was discovered that in her haste the mate had forgotten to bring her torch.
“We shan’t want it anyway,” she said.
“No one’s going back for it now,” said John. “Do hold the tiller amidships while I paddle her out.”
“It’s all right,” said Titty, “we’ve got the other three.”
“There’s quite a lot of wind,” said the mate, when they were clear of the rocks outside.
“That’s why I was in a hurry,” said the captain. “Now then, see that the mainsheet is free, so that the boom can swing right out. I’m going to hoist the sail up now. Are you ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the mate.
John shipped his oars, hooked on the yard, and swayed up the brown sail. The boom swung out free, so that the sail was no more than a big flag. John hurried aft to the tiller. He hauled in ever so little on the mainsheet, so that the sail held the wind and Swallow began to move. Then, putting the tiller up, he let her bear away until she was heading straight for Horseshoe Cove. The little pennant flew out straight before her from the masthead. The water creamed out from under her forefoot as she gathered speed.
“Shall I go forward now to be look-out?” asked Roger.
“No,” said John, who was beginning to feel how strong the wind was. “We want all the weight aft. Both you and Titty come as far aft as you can.”
The wind was dead aft and stronger with every yard that they moved out of the shelter of the island and the hills on the eastern shore of the lake. With Susan beside him in the stern-sheets, and the boy and the able-seaman crowded aft on the bottom boards at their feet, it was all that John could do to keep the Swallow steady on her course. The wind pressing on her sail seemed to be trying to lift her rudder out of the water and that did not help to make steering easy.
“She’s going faster than a motor boat,” said Roger.
“Oughtn’t we to have reefed?” said the mate.
“The Amazons hadn’t,” said the captain, with his teeth tight clenched, hanging on to the mainsheet with one hand and holding the tiller as hard as he could with the other, doing his utmost to keep Swallow from yawing about.
“What’s that you’re saying, Titty?” asked the mate.
“I was telling Roger the bit about the old man who meant to hang on,” said Titty; “the bit daddy read to us at Falmouth.”
“Well, her canvas won’t bust,” said John, “and she’s got a jolly strong mast.”
But he spoke too soon.
If the wind had been steady, it would not have been so bad, but it was never the same strength for long together. Every now and then came a harder puff, so sudden and so strong that it forced the nose of the boat round before John could meet her with the tiller and put her back on her course again. Every time that this happened it began to look less and less likely that John would be able to carry out his plan of sailing into the cove without having to jibe twice over, once to bring the sail across to the starboard side, and then again to bring it back to the port side for running into the cove. Each of these gusts that was a little too hard or too sudden for John left the Swallow further to the north of her proper course, and this meant that the wind was no longer directly from aft but was blowing over the quarter from the same side as that on which was the sail. The little pennant was no longer blowing directly forward over the stern, nor was it blowing out with the sail, when it would have shown that all was safe. There was the sail out to port, and there at the masthead was the little pennant fluttering to starboard, showing that there was a danger that the wind might catch the leach of the sail and swing it right over. A jibe of that kind, not done on purpose, was what John was trying to avoid. He had made up his mind that he could get across without having to jibe at all.
“We ought to be able to do it,” he said aloud, and really because he began to be not quite sure.
“Remember the rock we saw yesterday,” said Susan.
“The Pike Rock,” said Titty.
“We’re much more likely to hit the rocks on this side if we get a gust like that one just as we are going in,” said John. “We ought to have reefed, really. It’s blowing much harder than it was a few minutes ago. But it’d be an awful job to bring her head to wind and reef here. Besides we’re very nearly there. I’m sure she’ll do it. . .”
“There are the Amazons,” called Roger.
With
