Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/75

59 while Billy with the wind blowing through his hair and with his hand upon the quivering  tiller, felt that he was quite the happiest boy in  the world.

“Tell me, Captain Saulsby,” he asked idly at last, “what makes the water look so queer  over there to the north?”

The Captain, who had been puffing comfortably upon his pipe and had almost, it seemed, fallen into a doze, turned slowly and awkwardly to look where Billy pointed. In the twinkling of an eye he became transformed  into a different man.

“Old fool that I am,” he cried, “sitting here and not keeping a look-out! Half asleep I must have been and in such tricky weather,  too.”

He sprang up and was at Billy’s side in one movement. What pain such activity must have cost him it would be hard to tell; his  weather-beaten face turned almost pale, and  drops of moisture stood on his forehead. He seized the tiller and gave Billy a sharp succession of orders, which the poor boy was too  bewildered to more than half understand.

“Cast off that rope, not that one, no, no, the other, quick, oh, if only I could reach it!”