Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/194

170 faded from staring into fifty years of sun and wind, but they held a beaming interest in the welfare of this tyro struggling in the meshes of hostile circumstance.

The reporter followed his guardian on deck, and his spirits swiftly rose. The Albatross was paying off under a flattened forestaysail, while her crew tailed onto the main-sheet with a roaring chorus, for they, too, felt a thrill of sentiment in this last cruise. The wind held fresh from the south'ard, and under the smooth lee of Cape Henlopen the Albatross shot seaward, as if they were skating over a polished floor. Now the pilots came tumbling up, and shouted as they turned to and helped set the maintopsail and staysail. The schooner staggered down to it, until the white water hissed over her low bulwark, and sobbed through the scuppers. "Old Pop" Markle slapped his knee and cried huskily:

"Give her all she'll stand, boys. It's like old times when we raced that dodgasted Number Four and hung to the weather riggin' by our teeth, and bent a new suit of sails every other cruise."