The jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard, the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck. Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind. The planks, which had not been swabbed since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers. I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the main- sail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. This had nearly tossed me off into the sea and now I lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled head foremost on the deck. The schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse, but next moment, the other sails still drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle. I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, with a report like a gun.
With one hand I caught the jib-boom, while my foot was lodged between the stay and the brace and as I still clung there panting, a dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the coracle and that I was left without retreat on the HISPANIOLA. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping the coracle under water. I was on the summit of one swell when the schooner came stooping over the next. I had scarce time to think–scarce time to act and save myself. Immensely tall she looked to me from my low station in the coracle.Īnd then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I could see the waves boiling white under her forefoot. Round she came, till she was broadside on to me–round still till she had covered a half and then two thirds and then three quarters of the distance that separated us. My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was towards joy. I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow. She was stock-still but for the current.įor the last little while I had even lost, but now redoubling my efforts, I began once more to overhaul the chase. The main-sail hung drooped like a banner. The breeze fell for some seconds, very low, and the current gradually turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved slowly round her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the table still burning on into the day. I have said this was the worst thing possible for me, for helpless as she looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her leeway, which was naturally great.īut now, at last, I had my chance. Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled, and these brought her in a moment right to the wind again. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all the time. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship.įor some time she had been doing the worse thing possible for me–standing still.
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