Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/72

56 water swiftly but was not easy to keep upon her course. The tiller jerked and kicked under his hand; there were times when he could scarcely hold it, and when the bow veered  threateningly to one side or another. The Captain paid little attention to his difficulties  but sat hunched up in his corner staring idly  before him.

“There’s a shoal place here off the headland,” he remarked at last; “you’ll have to make two or three tacks to get around it. That pesky Josephine can sail right over and will get more of a start than ever. If the tide were half an hour higher I would risk following. Now we’ve come so far we’ve got to get her.”

“But—but—what do I do?” inquired Billy, quite bewildered at the task set him. A boy who has never sailed a boat before finds suddenly a whole world of things that he would  like to know.

“Why, nothing but just come up into the wind, loose the sheet, lay your new course over  toward the lighthouse there. Now’s the minute—Ready about!”

Somehow, Billy never quite knew how, the thing was done. The bow swung round, the