The schooner came round with a sort of scared hurry when the master
threw the wheel hard over and trod on the spokes with all his weight. As
soon as the bellying mainsail began to flap, the three men let it go on
the run. They kept up the jumbo sail, as the main jib is called; they
reefed the foresail down to its smallest compass.
Mayo, young, nimble, and eager, singly knotted more reef points
than both his helpers together, and his crisp commands were obeyed
unquestioningly.
"He sartinly is chain lightning in pants," confided Dolph to Otie.
"He knows his card," said Otie to Dolph.
Captain Mayo led the way aft, crawling over the shingles and laths.
"I hope it's your judgment, sir, that we'd better keep her into the wind
as she is and try to ride this thing out," he suggested to the master.
"It is my judgment, sir," returned Captain Candage, with official
gravity.
Hove to, the old Polly rode in fairly comfortable style. She was deep
with her load of lumber, but the lumber made her buoyant and she
lifted easily. Her breadth of beam helped to steady her in the sweeping
seas--but Captain Mayo clung to a mainstay and faced the wind and
the driving rain and knew that the open Atlantic was no place for the
Polly on a night like that.
Spume from the crested breakers at her wallowing bow salted the rain on
his dripping face. It was an unseasonable tempest, scarcely to be looked
for at that time of year. But he had had frequent experience with the
vagaries of easterlies, and he knew that a summer easterly, when it
comes, holds menacing possibilities.
"They knowed how to build schooners when your old sirs built this one at
Mayoport," declared Captain Candage, trying to put a conciliatory tone
into his voice when he bellowed against the blast. "She'll live where
one of these fancy yachts of twice her size would be smothered."
Mayo did not answer. He leaped upon the house and helped Dolph and Otie
furl the mainsail that lay sprawled in the lazy-jaeks. They took their
time; the more imminent danger seemed to be over.
"I never knowed a summer blow to amount to much," observed Mr. Speed,
trying to perk up, though he was hanging on by both hands to avoid bring
blown off the slippery house.
"It depends on whether there's an extra special squall knotted into it
somewhere to windward," said Mayo, in a lull of the wind. "Then it can
amount to a devil of a lot, Mr. Speed!"