Francis Lynde

“ Brill yelled. “Shake the reefs out o' that stays'l! Jump to it for your lives!”
We jumped and after a breathless tussle with wet and swollen ropes the staysail was hoisted. Brill put the helm hard up and I fell into the engine hold to speed the motor to its limit, climbing out again immediately to lend a hand with the wheel. But in spite of all our efforts the schooner continued to edge in toward the crash. Doing his best Brill could only hold her on a course roughly paralleling the reef and we all saw that it needed nothing but the urge of an extra heavy sea to send us to our finish. ”

“ Though Brill was doing his best to claw off with the help of the patch of staysail it was evident that the wind, the seas and a strong tidal current were driving us helplessly upon the reef.
This was why Brill had yelled to me. Pedro and José were fighting desperately with the water-soaked lashings of the furled foresail and I understood at once that if we were to have any chance at all to save the schooner it would only be by making sail and making it mighty quickly. In the pitching surges the motor was barely giving us weak steerage way. ”

“ Under such conditions life aboard our chip of a vessel was merely endurance. The man at the wheel had to be lashed at his post and though we continued to tear along at express speed under our patch of stay sail and the kick of the motor, only eternal vigilance at the helm kept the towering following seas from broaching us. Naturally, with a total lack of nautical skill I was useless at the steering job, though time and again I offered to take a chance and relieve the three who were pretty thoroughly done in under the long strain. But Brill wouldn't trust me. ”