Francis Lynde

“ Brill was at the wheel trying to head the schooner up into the wind and the two Minorcans were doing their best to haul in on the mainsheet to help her around. Instinctively I tailed on to the sheet with them and after a battle that threatened to take the canvas sheerly out of the bolt ropes we won. Agile as a monkey, José leaped to the halyards the moment we had the great boom inboard and let the sail come down on the run. ”

“ I thought I was quite safe to turn in and leave the schooner in Brill's hands, and Brill in Pedro's hands. Mutiny seemed to have no terrors for the Minorcans; but as to that I doubted if either Brill or Dorgan would ever go within gunshot of a court of law to prefer charges against my allies. The bootleggers were too deep in the mud themselves to try to pull anybody else into the mire. ”

“ In the cabin I fed Dorgan what little he would eat. So far as I could determine he was none the worse for the half night of terror. He wanted to know if we'd lost the number of our mess in the storm and I told him we hadn't; that we were all still alive and kicking, thanks to Brill's seamanship.
“Yah,” he grunted. “You'll have to hand it to Isra'l when it comes to worryin' a windjammer through a blow. That's one place where his 'yellow' don't show none. You've lost the yacht in the raffle, I reckon?” ”

“ That don't sound so damn' crazy, neither.” Then the craven nature of the man had to come to the front: “It ain't my fault that you was crimped t'other night. I was dead set agin' it—told Jim Dorgan it was a low-down trick to play on anybody.”
“Wait and say that to Dorgan's face when he gets up and can use his one good arm,” I jeered; and with that I drove him below.
My watch on deck, which was kept until midnight, was entirely uneventful. Notwithstanding Brill's tentative prophecy about the weather the wind held steady out of the northeast and the schooner rode easily. ”

“ How we were able to do all this in the paralyzing confusion, with the seas tumbling aboard and no light save that which was born of a sort of phosphorescent glow that came from the sea itself I can never tell. ”

“ Now that I was chained to a mechanical job asking little or nothing of the brain I began to speculate anxiously upon the probable fate of the Waikiki in the hurricane. In the short time I had spent aboard of her at Miami I had seen nothing of her sailing master or crew, other than the cabin stewards. If she were well-officered and manned she was most likely doing just what we were doing; running before the storm ”