The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred me to action.Perhaps the situation was not hopeless.remembered Wolf Larsen's caution.He had expected all hell to break loose, and here it was.And where was he? I caught sight of him toiling at the main sheet, heaving it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping past.All this, and more, -- a whole world of chaos and wreck, -- in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped.
I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang to the jib-sheet.The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially filling and emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn of the sheet and the application of my whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly backed it.This I know:
I did my best.I pulled till I burst open the ends of all my fingers; and while I pulled, the flying-jib and staysail split their cloths apart and thundered into nothingness.
Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn until the next slap gave me more.Then the sheet gave with greater ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking up the slack.
"Make fast!" he shouted."And come on!"
As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough order obtained.The Ghost was hove to.She was still in working order, and she was still working.Though the rest of her sails were gone, the jib, backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled down flat, were themselves holding, and holding her bow to the furious sea as well.
I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat- tackles, saw it lift to leeward on a big sea and not a score of feet away.And, so nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon it, so that nothing remained to do but hook the tackles to either end and hoist it aboard.But this was not done so easily as it is written.
In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly amidships.
As we drifted closer, the boat would rise on a wave while we sank in the trough, till almost straight above me I could see the heads of the three men craned overside and looking down.Then, the next moment, we would lift and soar upward while they sank far down beneath us.It seemed incredible that the next surge should not crush the Ghost down upon the tiny eggshell.
But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while Wolf Larsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot.Both tackles were hooked in a trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, made a simultaneous leap aboard the schooner.As the Ghost rolled her side out of water, the boat was lifted snugly against her, and before the return roll came, we had heaved it in over the side and turned it bottom up on the deck.
I noticed blood spouting from Kerfoot's left hand.In some way the third finger had been crushed to a pulp.But he gave no sign of pain, and with his single right hand helped us lash the boat in its place.
"Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!" Wolf Larsen commanded, the very second we had finished with the boat."Kelly, come aft and slack off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see what's become of Cooky!
Mr.Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff on your way!"And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps, to the wheel.While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the Ghost slowly paid off.This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, there were no sails to carry away.And, halfway to the crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that it would have been impossible for me to have fallen, the Ghost almost on her beam ends and the masts parallel with the water, looked, not down, but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the Ghost.But I saw, not the deck, but where the deck should have been, for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling of water.Out of this water I could see the two masts rising, and that was all.The Ghost , for the moment, was buried beneath the sea.As she squared off more and more, escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself and broke her deck, like a whale's back, through the ocean surface.
Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while hung like a fly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats.In half an hour I sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to which were desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson.This time I remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded in heaving to without being swept.As before, we drifted down upon it.Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men, who scrambled aboard like monkeys.The boat itself was crushed and splintered against the schooner's side as it came inboard; but the wreck was securely lashed, for it could be patched and made whole again.
Once more the Ghost bore away before the storm, this time so submerging herself that for some seconds I thought she would never reappear.
