Esther's Charge Part 19

Pickle looked just a little doubtfully at the weather. The sun was almost obscured now, though it still shone over the sea away to the west and south. The wind was coming up in squally gusts behind them, and sending the boat dancing along merrily. It was certainly great fun sailing on like that, but the waves were beginning to grow rather bigger out here than they had looked from inside the bay, and when the wind came rushing along, there were sometimes little crests of foam to be seen, and now and then these dashed into the boat.

"I think, perhaps, we'd better put her about now," he said, with a look of wise command directed towards Puck; "the storm might come over here, you know, and then we should get very wet--at least if it rained. You know how to put her helm round, Puck, don't you? Or shall I come and do it?"

"Of course I know," answered Puck rather indignantly; "you just manage the sail. It always flaps a great deal when we put her round on the other tack."

Milly and Bertie, greatly impressed by this nautical language, sat as still as mice watching their companions. Milly was rather disappointed at hearing they were to go back, but now that the sun was obscured and the wind getting up, it wasn't quite so nice upon the water, and Bertie was looking very solemn indeed.

"You're not frightened, are you?" she whispered.

"Oh no; only my inside feels funny," he answered, trying to put a brave face on matters. "I don't think I mind going home so very much."

Milly had no qualms of seasickness such as were troubling Bertie, but she did think the boat was rocking rather wildly, and the sail seemed to be flapping and pulling them over, and the water was very near the edge of the boat, which seemed to be dipping quite down. She gave a little shriek, and threw herself towards the other side. Pickle was fighting fiercely with the sail, and she went to his a.s.sistance, and only just in time.

"We must get it down," he said; and Milly helped with all her might, so that in a few more minutes the boat lay rocking on the waves, the sail furled up round the mast, whilst Bertie called out dismally that the water was all over his feet, and Pickle told him rather sharply to get the water can and bail it out as fast as he could.

"You didn't turn her head right a bit," he said to Puck. "We were nearly capsized that time."

"Then it was your fault with the sail," retorted Puck, who was rather frightened. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Let's go home now," cried Milly, a little piteously, though struggling hard against her rising fears; "the sun's gone in, and I think it's going to rain, and oh! what a flash of lightning that was!"

The boom of the thunder almost immediately after was even more alarming.

Poor little Bertie, who was feeling very sick and queer, began to cry; and Pickle looked towards the sh.o.r.e, and marveled how they could ever have got all that way from it in such a little time.

"We can never row back," was the thought in his heart; "we must get the sail up again somehow. We've sailed the _Swan_ backwards and forwards.

Why on earth won't this old tub do the same? It must be Puck's fault."

He saw that the spirit of the party was becoming damped, and he was the more resolved to keep up a bold front himself.

"We must just pull her round with the sweeps," he said in his commanding way, "and then we'll get the sail up all right. It's only just the tacking that is a bit difficult. We'll be racing home in a jiffy, you'll see."

This was consoling to Milly, who was half ashamed of her sudden fears, and now that the boat ceased to rock and plunge so wildly she began to recover her courage; and it was rather grand to be helping Pickle to pull the old boat round. She could do that quite well, as well as help Bertie with the bailing out, which he only prosecuted languidly, looking almost ready to cry. His face had a sickly greenish hue too, which rather distressed Milly, but Pickle said,--

"He's only seasick. Puck felt like that once or twice. He'll be better soon."

When the boat was really headed for the sh.o.r.e, Pickle tried experiments with the sail; but do as he would, he couldn't make the boat sail towards land. It would sail away, or it would sail sideways, but towards sh.o.r.e it would not go; and indeed they seemed to be getting slowly farther and farther away, and Bertie suddenly burst into miserable crying, begging to be taken home, because he was so very poorly.

Pickle was beginning to wish very sincerely that they had never left their island. He looked back towards it with longing eyes. It would be a real city of refuge now, but alas! it looked almost as far away as the mainland.

"Can't we row to it?" asked Milly, following the direction of his eyes.

"I'm quite cool now. I'm rather cold. I should like to row if we can't sail. We got out here so very quickly, it can't take so very long to row back."

It seemed the only thing to do, and Pickle consented to try. He took one oar, and Milly the other. Puck kept the tiller, and put the boat's head for their city of refuge, whilst Bertie lay along the bottom of the boat, heedless of damp or discomfort, only longing to be at home in his little bed.

"I hope father won't call it being a c.o.c.kney," he once said pitifully to Milly, "but I can't help it. I do feel so sick. I wish we'd never come."

"I dare say Cornish boys are sometimes sick at sea," answered Milly consolingly. She hardly knew whether she wished they had not come or not. There was something rather exciting in the adventure, and if only they could get back to their city of refuge she thought she should be quite glad. It would make them feel that they really were sailors, to be able to manage a boat in a storm.

Milly had her back to the sh.o.r.e now, and was pulling her oar very manfully. She thought they seemed to be going very fast through the water, though the waves were rather bigger than she liked, and seemed sometimes to rise up very near the edge of the boat. Still she thought they seemed to be getting through them very fast, and made up her mind that they would soon be at their journey's end now. She almost wondered why Puck did not exclaim that they were close in now. He only sat holding the tiller with a very solemn expression on his face.

"The waves are getting very big," he said at last; "I don't much like the look of them. This boat doesn't swim nicely, like the _Swan_. They look as though they'd come in on us every time."

Then Milly looked over her shoulder, and gave a little cry of astonishment and dismay.

"Why, we're farther off than when we started!" she cried.

"I think we get farther and farther away every minute," said Puck. "I should like to pull round, and put up the sail again, and go round the world like that. We should come to our island again upside down, you know, and it would be much easier."

"It's the wind and the tide against us," said Pickle, with a rather anxious face. "We shall never get home at this rate."

A sob from Bertie was the only response to this remark. Milly was trying to choke back her tears, because she didn't want it cast in her teeth that girls always cried.

"What can we do?" said Puck.

"I think we'd better do as you said," answered Pickle--"get her head round, and put up a bit of sail, and run before the wind. I don't think the old boat is safe going against these big waves. She'll be all right the other way, and we shall fall in with some ship soon, and they'll take us on board; or perhaps we shall get to a coral island after all."

"I'd rather go home," sobbed Bertie; and Milly wondered if it was very silly of her, but she wanted much more now to be at home than to see a coral island.

Pickle put on a brave face, for he felt that he was the captain, and must support the failing courage of his crew; but he began to wish from the bottom of his heart that he had not thrown aside his good resolutions quite so quickly, and that he had never tried to sail a boat before Mr. Earle had given him leave.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAGICIAN'S CAVE.

Esther had taken her mother for a little drive upon that hot September afternoon, but they had not stayed out so long as usual. The banks of cloud rising in the sky had frightened Mrs. St. Aiden, and Esther turned the pony's head for home, not very wishful herself to test Punch's nerve in a thunderstorm.

They got home, however, before the first rumble sounded, and Mrs. St.

Aiden went up-stairs to lie down. She said that the heavy air made her head ache, and that perhaps she should get a nap before tea-time.

Esther had taken off her hat, and was watching the first flashes of the lightning amid the piled-up clouds, when the little maid came to say that there was a poor woman who wanted to speak to one of the ladies, and should she tell the mistress, or would Miss Esther see her?

"Oh, I'll go," said Esther; "mother must not be disturbed."

She ran down to the back gate. Genefer was out, and for the moment there was only the little maid available for any service. The cook was picking fruit in the garden over the road. She must not be hindered, as the rain would very likely soon come.

Esther did not remember ever to have seen this wrinkled old woman before. She did not know in the least who she was, nor what she wanted.

She could only just understand her when she spoke, for she had a very broad, soft accent, and used many funny words that the little girl hardly understood.

At first she thought the woman must be making a mistake in what she was saying; for she was telling Esther that the little gentlemen, and little Miss Milly from the rectory, were out in a boat on the bay, and that she was afraid there was a storm coming on, and had come up to tell somebody lest they should come to harm.

It was some time before Esther could be persuaded that there was not a mistake somewhere. She could not believe that Pickle and Puck and the little Polperrans could possibly be out in a boat by themselves. But the old woman a.s.sured her that they were, and told her, in a half-frightened way, how they came down on most Sat.u.r.days and took her husband's old boat across to the little island opposite, where they played for a few hours and then came back. But it had always been calm and quiet on the water hitherto, and she had had no uneasiness on their account; but now the wind was getting up, and it looked like a storm coming, and she thought she ought to tell somebody, and didn't know what to do lest her old man should be vexed with her. So she had come to see the ladies about it. Perhaps they could send somebody.

"Oh yes," answered Esther quickly, casting about in her mind what to do; "I think I could find somebody who would help. Is the storm going to come very quickly?"