Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/230

196 surges were racing in from seaward, growing larger with each successive billow.

Handy Solomon raised his head, listened intently, and struck his forehead.

"Wind," he screamed at the top of his voice, and jumped for the halliards.

Thrackles followed him, but no one else moved. In an instant the two were back, striking and kicking savagely, rousing their companions to the danger. We all laid into the canvas like mad, and in no time had snugged down to a staysail and the peak of our mainsail. Thrackles drew his knife and jumped for the cable, while Handy Solomon, his eyes snapping, seized the wheel.

We finished just in time. I was turning away after tying the last gasket on the foresail, when the deck up-ended and tipped me headforemost into the starboard scupper. At the same time a smother of salt water blew over the port rail, now far above me, to drench me as thoroughly as though I had fallen overboard. I brushed out my eyes to find the ship smack on her beam ends, and the wind howling by from the sea.

I had company enough in the scuppers. Only Handy Solomon clung desperately to the wheel, jamming his weight to port in the hope she might pay up: Thrackles, too, his eye squinted along some bearing of his own, was waiting for her to drag. Presently it became evident that she was doing so, whereupon he drew his knife across our hawser.

"My God," chattered Pulz at my ear. "If we go ashore"