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Three Boys; or, the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 17. A Terrible Journey |
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_ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A TERRIBLE JOURNEY Bailing a boat is like most other things, it has to be learned, and it is a puzzling thing to grasp the meaning of the way in which it seems to act. To sit and hold the rudder and go right away with the wind dead astern is not so difficult, but to try and sail a boat with the wind almost in your teeth, is, at the first time of asking, rather a strain upon the unaccustomed mind. The first thing which Max discovered was that, as soon as the sail was up, the boat seemed to try to take, so to speak, the bit in its teeth and run off to the north; the next, that he held in the tiller whip, spur, reins, everything for governing this strangely-mobile creature, and at the hint from Kenneth he had changed its course. But now, as it could not go north, the boat seemed to be trying to go due east, and, with the sail well filled and careening over, she literally rushed through the water, which sparkled in her wake. "But he said I must tack," thought Max. "Why not try and sail straight away?" He tried to do this by turning the tiller more and more, but as he did so the speed of the boat grew less and less, and finally she stood still, with the sail shivering, and when he gave the sheet a shake, the sail gradually filled on the other side; the boat's head swung round, and he found that he was rushing due west, straight for the cliff upon which Kenneth and Scoodrach were watching his course. For a few moments Max lost his head--metaphorically, of course, and not Carlistically. He sat, tiller in hand, gazing aghast at the great wall of rock with the rugged _debris_ of fallen masses at the bottom, upon which in a very few minutes the boat would rush with a sharp crash, and then, mistily and in a chaotic manner, he realised that there would be a miniature wreck, similar on a small scale to those of which he had so often read in the papers. "What shall I do?" he gasped; and he gazed away to the right, at where he could see the two boys upon their shelf, too far away for their voices to be heard. There was no help or advice to be had, so he was thrown back upon his own brain for the very best help there is in the world--self-help; and, making a bold grasp, as it was hovering in a mist, he caught his lost head again, and held it tightly. As he did this, he recalled that he held the guiding principle of the boat in his hand, pressed the tiller hard, and, to his great delight, the little vessel made a beautiful curve, ran right up in the wind, the sail flapped and shivered, there came a puff of wind that seemed to be reflected from the tall cliff, the sail filled on the other side, the boat careened over, and away he was rushing right merrily again. It was none too soon, for, as the boat curved round, he was within forty yards of some black rocks, whose weed-hung heads were just level with the water. But in those few minutes he had gained one splendid bit of experience in the management of a boat, namely, that he had but to keep his head and be cool, and then he could guide the craft wherever he pleased. His spirits rose at this, as the little vessel glided rapidly on, now toward the west, and he knew that when he was close to the far side of the loch he had but to reverse the action with the rudder, and turn and come back. There was a beautiful breeze, and he span along, his face flushed, eyes sparkling, and his heart beating fast with excitement. It was most enjoyable. He could manage the boat,--so he thought,--but by degrees he began to grasp the fact that if he kept on he would be going to and fro over the same water, and he wanted to go due south, and not east and west. Then came back what Kenneth had said about tacking, and by degrees he more fully mastered what he had to learn, namely, that he must use the rudder, and force the boat to go south-east instead of east, and, in returning, south-west instead of west, so as to cross and recross the loch diagonally, or in a zigzag course, so that at each tack he would be farther south. To his great delight, he found, by keeping a firm hand upon the rudder, he could do this, but it proved to be such slow work that he began to experimentalise a little more, and, instead of sailing south-east and south-west, he contrived to keep the boat's head so that he sailed south-south-east and south-south-west. Later on, when with the two lads, and Scoodrach at the tiller, he found that, had he known, he could have made more southing each tack, for the little boat could sail wonderfully close to the wind. It was still slow work to one who was effervescing with eagerness to reach Dunroe and obtain help, and over and over again, as the distance seemed so long, Max shivered with dread lest he should have overshot the mark and passed the place. It seemed impossible that they could have gone so far. But no; there was the castle which they had passed on the right, and there was the other that they had glided by on the left--now, of course, with the positions reversed. So, gaining confidence, and feeling wonderfully self-satisfied at the way he could sail a boat, he sped on. Fortunately for him, the breeze was just perfect and as steady as could be, and he knew nothing of the risks to which he was exposed. He sailed on by narrow gorge and ravine--openings in the great hills--in profound ignorance of the fact that through any of these a violent squall of wind might come with a whistle and shriek, catch the sail and lay it flat upon the water, while the boat filled and went down. Then, too, he was happily ignorant of the sets of the tide and the wild currents which raced through some of the channels, and of the hundreds of rocks which lay below the surface, ready to catch the keel or rip open the thin planks of a boat. Max saw none of these dangers,--he did not even dream of them,--but sat with flushed face, gazing onward, as he skimmed in exhilarating motion over the sunny sea. "I do like sailing," he said to himself, in spite of the hand which held the sheet, at which the sail snatched and tugged, beginning to ache, and the other which grasped the rudder feeling numb. For the moment, too, he forgot that the sun did not always shine, and that the sea rose angrily, and that there were such things as storms. All went quite smoothly, however, for about three parts of the distance, when all at once a peculiar washing sound reached his ears; and, gazing in the direction from which it came, he became aware of the fact that there was some water in the bottom of the boat, gliding here and there as the little vessel gave to the pressure of the wind. He paid no heed to it at first, only thinking that the boat must be a little leaky, and knowing that he ought by rights to seek forward a little tin can and bale the water out. But the management of the sail and rudder fully occupied him till he made the next tack, when it struck him that the quantity of water had certainly increased, as it ran over to the other side. But still it caused him no uneasiness. He only felt that before long he might have wet feet, and he kept on looking out ahead for Dunroe. At the next tack, there was undoubtedly a good deal more water, and the bottom boards of the boat kept rising, one going so far as to set sail on a little voyage of its own, and floating about. What was to be done?--to throw the boat up in the wind, and stop and bale, or to sail on as fast as he could, and get to Dunroe? Thinking that the water did not much matter, he kept on sailing tack after tack, till the water increased so much that it brought with it a chill of horror as well as cold; for there could be no mistake in the fact that the weight of water in the boat interfered largely with its progress, and Max felt that if he delayed baling much longer she might fill and sink. He hesitated for a moment or two, and then tried to turn the boat's head so as to meet the wind. In this he succeeded, and, as the sail shivered and flapped, he looked for the tin baler. This he did not find, because in his excitement he forgot to look in the right place, so in his flurry he took off his cap and set to work with that, dipping and pouring the water over the side. A tiring job at the best of times, and with proper implements; wearisome in the extreme with no better baler than a cap; but Max made up in perseverance what was wanting in skill, and before very long he had satisfied himself, by comparison with some paint-marks, that the water was not gaining. At the same time he did not feel that he was reducing it much; and the difficulty stared him in the face that he could not keep on baling and make progress too. Taking out his knife, he made a scratch at the level of the water, and, once more taking the helm, the boat gracefully bent over and sped on. The journey now grew tediously laborious. The afternoon was passing, and it seemed to Max that he would never reach Dunroe; for at every tack he paused to examine his mark, and found that the water had gained, so that he was compelled to stop and bale once more. He looked for the leak, but it was invisible. All he could make out was that it must be somewhere under the boards laid in the bottom of the boat. For quite a couple of hours did this go on, with the water still increasing, and Dunroe appeared to be as far off as ever; while the lad's task was Sisyphean, since, as fast as he baled the water out, it seemed to return. There was something else, too, for him to combat. At first he had worked with plenty of spirit, but after many repetitions of the task a deadly sense of fatigue began to grow upon him, and as it affected his body, so it did his mind, till it seemed as if a great black cloud were appearing. Despair rode upon that cloud, and, as he worked, his face burned, but his heart chilled, and in imagination he saw himself sinking helplessly, when his arms should fall down to his sides, and he could do no more. The result was that he baled with less effect, and instead of keeping the water under, it began to master him; and he found at last, that, in spite of all his efforts, his knife-mark was covered, and the water kept inches above, and still increased. _ |
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