The at the Seashore Part 5 (2/2)
”Go ahead!” said Eleanor.
Instantly Dolly, with a quick look at her sails, which were hanging limp again, since she had altered the course a trifle, became all attention.
”One--two--three--go!” called Miss Turner, clapping her hands at the word 'go.'
And instantly Dolly s.h.i.+fted her helm once more, so that the wind filled the sails, and the Eleanor shot for the opening in the bar. Quick as she had been, however, she was no quicker than Gladys, and the Defiance and the Eleanor pa.s.sed through the bar and out into the open sea together. Here there was more motion, since the short, choppy waves outside the bar were never wholly still, no matter how calm the sea might seem to be. But Bessie, who had been rather nervous as to the effect of this motion, which she had been warned to dread, found it by no means unpleasant.
For a few moments Dolly's orders flew sharply. Although the wind was very light, there was enough of it to give fair speed, and the sails had to be trimmed to get the utmost possible out of it while it lasted. Both boats tacked to starboard, sailing along a slanting line that seemed likely to carry them far to one side of the lighthouse that was their destination, and Bessie wondered at this.
”We're not sailing straight for the lighthouse,” she said. ”Isn't that supposed to be where we turn? Don't we have to sail around it?”
”Yes, but we can't go straight there, because the wind isn't right,” explained Dolly. ”We'll keep on this way for a spell; then we'll come about and tack to port, and then to starboard again. In that way we can beat the wind, you see, and make it work for us, even if it doesn't want to.”
Half way to the lighthouse there was less than a hundred feet between the boats. The Defiance seemed to be a little ahead, but the advantage, if she really had one at all, was not enough to have any real effect on the race.
”Going out isn't going to give either of us much chance to gain, I guess,” said Dolly. ”The real race will be when we're going back, with what wind there is behind us.”
But soon it seemed that Dolly had made a rash prediction, for when she came about and started to beat up to port, the Defiance held to her course.
”Well, she can do that if she wants to,” said Dolly. ”Just the same, I think she's going too far.”
”It looks to me as if she were pretty sure of what she's doing though, Dolly,” said Margery, anxiously. ”Don't you think you tacked a little too soon?”
”If I thought that I wouldn't have done it, Margery,” said Dolly. ”Don't bother me with silly questions now I've got to figure on tacking again so as to make that turn with the least possible waste of time.”
”Don't talk to the 'man' at the wheel,” advised Eleanor, with a laugh. ”She's irritable.”
A good many of the nautical terms used so freely by the others might have been so much Greek for all Bessie could understand of them, but the race itself had awakened her interest and now held it as scarcely anything she had ever done had been able to do.
She kept her eyes fixed on the other boat, and at last she gave a cry.
”Look! They're going to turn now.”
”Score one for Gladys, Margery,” said Dolly, quietly. ”She's certainly stolen a march on me. Do you see that? She's going to make her turn on the next tack, and I believe she'll gain nearly five minutes on us. That was clever, and it was good work.”
”Never mind, Dolly,” said Margery. ”You've still got a chance to catch her going home before the wind. I know how fast the Eleanor is at that sort of work. If the Defiance is any better, she ought to be racing for some real cups.”
”Oh, don't try to cheer me up! I made an awful mess of that, Margery, and I know it. Gladys had more nerve than I, that's all. She deserves the lead she's got. It isn't a question of the boats, at all. The Defiance is being sailed better than the Eleanor.”
”Margery's right, though, Dolly,” said Eleanor. ”The race isn't over yet. You haven't given up hope, have you?”
”Given up?” cried Dolly, scornfully, through set teeth. ”Just you watch, that's all! I'm going to get home ahead if I have to swamp us all.”
”That's more like her,” Margery whispered to Bessie.
And now even Bessie could see that the Defiance had gained a big advantage. Before her eyes, not so well trained as those of the others to weigh every consideration in such a contest, had not seen what was really happening. But it was plain enough now. Even while the Defiance was holding on for the lighthouse, on a straight course, the Eleanor had to come about and start beating up toward it, and the Defiance made the turn, and, with spinnaker set, was skimming gaily for home a full five minutes before the Eleanor circled the lighthouse.
In fact, the Defiance, homeward bound, pa.s.sed them, and Mary Turner laughed gaily as she hailed Eleanor.
”This is pretty bad,” she called. ”Better luck next time, Nell!”
Marcia Bates waved her hand gaily to them, but Gladys Cooper, her eyes straight ahead, her hand on the tiller, paid no attention to them. There was no mistaking the look of triumph on her face, however. She was sure she was going to win, and she was glorying in her victory already.
”I'll make her smile on the other side of her face yet,” said Dolly, viciously. ”She might have waved her hand, at least. If we're good enough to race with, we're good enough for her to be decently polite to us, I should think.”
”Easy, Dolly!” said Margery. ”It won't help any for you to lose your temper, you know. Remember you've still got to sail your boat.”
The Defiance was far ahead when, at last, after a wait that seemed to those on board interminable, the Eleanor rounded the lighthouse in her turn.
”Lively now!” commanded Dolly. ”Shake out the spinnaker! We're going to need all the sail we've got. There isn't enough wind now to make a flag stand out properly.”
”And they got the best of it, too,” lamented Margery. ”You see, Bessie, the good wind there was when they started back carried them well along. We won't get that, and we'll keep falling further and further behind, because they've probably still got more wind than we have. It'll die out here before it does where they are.”
Dolly stood up now, and cast her eyes behind her on the horizon, and all about. And suddenly, without warning, she put the helm over, and the Eleanor stood off to port, heading, as it seemed, far from the opening in the bar that was the finis.h.i.+ng line.
”Dolly, are you crazy!” exclaimed Margery. ”This is a straight run before the wind!”
”Suppose there isn't any wind?” asked Dolly. The strained, anxious look had left her eyes, and she seemed calm now, almost elated. ”Margery, you're a fine cook, but you've got a lot to learn yet about sailing a boat!”
Bessie was completely mystified, and a look at Margery showed her that she, too, although silenced, was far from being satisfied. But now Margery suddenly looked off on the surface of the water, and gave a glad cry.
”Oh, fine, Dolly!” she exclaimed. ”I see what you're up to--and I bet Gladys thinks you're perfectly insane, too!”
”She'll soon know I'm not,” said Dolly, grimly. ”I only hope she doesn't know enough to do the same thing. I don't see how she can miss, though, unless she can't see in time.”
Still Bessie was mystified, and she did not like to ask for an explanation, especially since she felt certain that one would be forthcoming anyhow in a few moments. And, sure enough, it was. For suddenly she felt a breath of wind, and, at the same instant Dolly brought the Eleanor up before the wind again, and for the first time Bessie understood what the little sloop's real speed was.
”You see, Bessie,” said Margery, ”Dolly knew that the wind was dying. It's a puffy, uncertain sort of wind, and very often, on a day like this, there'll be plenty of breeze in one spot, and none at all in another.”
”Oh, so we came over here to find this breeze!” said Bessie.
”Yes. It was the only chance. If we had stayed on the other course we might have found enough breeze to carry us home, but we would have gone at a snail's pace, just as we were doing, and there was no chance at all to catch Gladys and the Defiance that way.”
”We haven't caught them yet, you know,” said Dolly.
”But we're catching them,” said Bessie, exultingly. ”Even I can see that. Look! They're just crawling along.”
”Still, even at the rate they're going, ten minutes more will bring them to the finish,” said Margery, anxiously. ”Do you think she can make it, Dolly?”
”I don't know,” said Dolly. ”I've done all I can, anyhow. There isn't a thing to do now but hold her steady and trust to this s.h.i.+ft of the wind to last long enough to carry us home.”
Now the Eleanor was catching the Defiance fast, and nearing her more and more rapidly. It was a strange and mysterious thing to Bessie to see that of two yachts so close together--there was less than a quarter of a mile between them now--one could have her sails filled with a good breeze while the other seemed to have none at all. But it was so. The Defiance was barely moving; she seemed as far from the finish now as she had been when Margery spoke.
”They're stuck--they're becalmed,” said Margery, finally, when five minutes of steady gazing hadn't shown the slightest apparent advance by the Defiance. ”Oh, Dolly, we're going to beat them!”
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