Part 32 (1/2)
”Then you advise our putting up the helm and running for Zanzibar?”
”Aye.”
The cutter was rigged with a dipping lug and a spritsail; so, no sooner had crusty old Draper given his laconic answer to Mr Chisholm, than the latter sang out to Larrikins, who was in the bows.
”Look out there forrud!” he cried. ”Stand by to dip!”
This is considered one of the smartest things in boat-sailing, the men having to be specially stationed for the purpose; but, as we had been living in the cutter now for three months, and had experience of her under any and every change of wind and sail, the operation did not occasion much difficulty to us.
Larrikins, who was bowman, pressed out the fore part of the lug as soon as the yard was half lowered, while two other hands gathered the sheet of the sail forwards, and pa.s.sed it round the mast as soon as Draper had put the helm up; when I and another chap who was aft with me, unhooked the sheet to port and then rehooked it to the starboard side, which was to windward now on the cutter's head coming round, as she went off on the other tack.
Gathering way in a minute or two as we eased off the sheet of the lug, the cutter went ahead at a great pace, making much better weather of it running before the wind, as was the case now, than she had lately, before we came about, when beating up to Bagamoyo; skimming over the broken surface of the sea, her bows and the deadwood of her keel forwards being clean out of the water sometimes as she jumped from wave to wave, and sending the spray she threw up as she came down bash on the top of some billow, right inboard, wetting us to the skin, and leaving a wake behind her like a millrace.
We were steering almost due north now; and, looking ahead under the leech of the lugsail, I could see that the clouds we had observed before banked up on the horizon had crept up towards the zenith, spreading out laterally on either side, until half of the heavens was obscured.
Then, all of a sudden, the wind dropped, as if done with a turn of the hand.
”Look out there for your sheet!” cried old Draper, in a warning tone, a.s.suming the direction of affairs and taking command of the boat unconsciously in the emergency, over the head of his officer, Mr Chisholm. ”Let go your sheet, I say!”
Bouncer the seaman, who sat on the after thwart and had charge of this, bungled about the job, having taken a turn with the end of the rope round the cleat, instead of holding it in his fist as he should have done; and the c.o.xswain's harsh repet.i.tion of the order in such an imperative tone seemed to flurry him, making him all the slower.
”Hang it all, man!” shouted Mr Chisholm, taking up the cry, ”let go the sheet at once!”
Seeing what a fog Bouncer was in, besides which the sail was just then beginning to bulge back as the wind headed us, the boat rocking for an instant and then canting over as if she was going to capsize, I drew my knife and rushed to where he sat in the bottom of the boat, struggling with the sheet!
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
THE ARAB STRONGHOLD.
At that moment the wind lulled for an instant, and I was just able to make a slash with the sharp edge of my knife across the rope, severing it instanter, and thus saving poor bungling Bouncer all further trouble; when, a terrific gust came, this time right astern, carrying sail and mast and all, the latter snapping off like a carrot close to the thwart where it was stepped, over the heads of all in the boat forwards, high in air--just as if the lot were the remnants of a big kite that had parted its supporting string, the sail ultimately disappearing in the distance, swallowed up by the angry waves.
These latter were now boiling up round the cutter on every side, our little pigmy of a craft seeming lost in the seething caldron of broken water; but, she was buoyant as a cork, and, although half rilled, breasted the billows in fine style and running before wind and sea at a tearing rate with not a rag of sail on her now, nor an oar, save one Mr Chisholm and I rigged out over the stern by Draper's direction, this being better to steer her by than the rudder, which we then uns.h.i.+pped.
It was a good job for us that our old c.o.xswain had got wounded, and that Draper had taken his place just then temporarily while Hoskins was on the sick-list; for, though Draper was the oldest petty officer on board the s.h.i.+p--his promotion to a higher grade having been delayed, I believe, through his natural crustiness of temper, which he really could not help--there was no doubt that he knew the East Coast of Africa well, and the management of a boat the better of the two, especially in a stormy sea.
Ay, and it was stormy now!
Far as the eye could reach, the mad waves dashed and clashed against each other as they raced along, borne onward before the blast; throwing up their white crests, all lashed into foam, in showers of spray and spindrift that fell back over us in the boat, wetting us to the skin and blinding those that had to face it.
The horizon, too--what we could see of it, that is, through the spray-- was covered with a ma.s.s of inky clouds, almost blue-black in hue, that covered by degrees the whole of the heavens, with the exception of a round spot right overhead that looked like a gigantic eye.
Mr Chisholm, who, young though he was, had the sight of a hawk, spotted this at once.
”Hullo, Draper!” he cried, pointing aloft. ”What's that up there-- anything more brewing up for us, d'ye think?”
The c.o.xswain, who had all his work cut out to keep the boat from being swamped by the heavy following seas that came rolling up astern of us, threatening every minute to engulf the cutter and carry her down bodily below, gave an uneasy squint in the direction whither the young officer pointed his finger.
”Lord-sakes, sir,” he exclaimed, shaking his head in a very grave way, ”that be a h'ox-eye!”
”Ox-eye!” Mr Chisholm repeated after him in a quizzing tone, with a grin on his face. ”I've heard of ox-tongues before--those tinned ones ain't bad eating sometimes for lunch on a pinch; but an ox-eye--what is that, Draper?”