Geoffrey Hamstead Part 12

Lemons broke away then and tried to climb the rigging, but he was caught and carried back, two men at each limb, who showered reproach upon him.

The victim was as helpless as a babe in their hands, and was conscious that the ladies had heard everything.

Charlie rapped on the admiralty skylight and asked for instructions. He declared Lemons would not wash himself, and he asked what should be done with him? In vain the victim cried that the whole thing was a plot. A prompt answer came, with the sound of laughter, from the admiralty that he was to go overboard. This was received with savage satisfaction, and, after three swings backward and forward, Lemon's body was launched into the air and disappeared under the water.

But Lemons did not come up again. In two or three seconds it occurred to some one to ask whether Lemons could swim. They had taken it for granted that he could. The thought came over them that perhaps by this time he was gone forever. Without waiting further, Geoffrey dived off the wall-sided yacht to grope along the bottom, which was only twelve feet from the surface. He entered the water like a knife, and from the bubbles that rose to the surface it could be seen that a thorough search was being made. Each one took slightly different directions, and went over the side, one after another, like mud-turtles off a log. Between them all, the chance of his remaining drowned upon the bottom was small.

Several came up for air, and dived again in another place and met each other below. There was no gamboling now. They were horrified, and looked upon it as a matter of life or death. They dived again and again, until one man came up bleeding at the nose and sick with exhaustion. Geoffrey swam to help him to reach the yacht, when an explosion of laughter was heard on the deck, and there was Lemons, with the laugh entirely on his side. As soon as he had got underneath the surface he had dived deep, and by swimming under water had come up under the counter, where he waited till all were in the water, and then he came on deck.

Revenge was never more complete. Lemons was the hero of the hour. The girls thought him splendid, and afterward the sight of eight pairs of trousers and eight shirts drying on the main-boom seemed to do him good.

Charlie said they ought not to make a laundry clothes-horse of the yacht on Sunday, and proposed to leave Cobourg. Mrs. Dusenall made a slight demur to leaving on Sunday. Jack explained that if it blew hard from the south they could not get out at all without a steam-tug from Port Hope.

This seemed a bore--to be locked up, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, in harbor--so the yacht was warped to the head of the east pier, where, catching the breeze, she cleared the west pier and headed out into the lake. Outside they found the wind pretty well ahead and increasing, but, with sails flattened in, the Ideal lay down to it, and clawed up to windward in a way that did their hearts good.

Some topsails were soon descried far away to windward, showing where two other vessels were also beating down the lake. This gave them something to try for, and when the topmast was housed and all made snug not a great while elapsed before the hulls of the schooners became occasionally visible. The sea was much higher and the motion greater than on the previous day, but the breeze, being ahead, was more refreshing, and n.o.body felt in danger of being ill after the first hour out. They "came to" under the wooded rocks of Nicholas Island, put in a couple of reefs, for comfort's sake, and "hove to" in calm water to take lunch quietly.

After lunch, as the yacht paid off on a tack to the southward to weather the Scotch Bonnet Lighthouse, they found, on leaving the shelter of the island, a sea rolling outside large enough to satisfy any of them. One hardly realizes from looking at a small atlas what a nice little jump of a sea Ontario can produce in these parts. The hour lost in mollycoddling for lunch under the island made a difference in the work the yacht had to do. The two schooners, having received another long start, were making good weather of it well to windward of the light, and, when on the tops of waves, their hulls could be seen launching ahead in fine style through the white crests. The yacht's rigging, as she soared to the top of the wave, supplied a musical instrument for the wind to play barbaric tunes upon, which to Jack and some others were inspiring. As she swept down the breezy side of a conquered wave, her rigging sounded a savage challenge to the next bottle-green-and-white mountain to come on and be cut down.

Mrs. Dusenall went below and fell asleep in her berth, and some of the others were lying about the after-cabin dozing over books. Nina and the Dusenall girls lay on the sloping deck, propped against the companion-hatch, where they could command the attention of several other people who were sprawled about in the neighborhood of the wheel.

Margaret and Rankin persisted in climbing about the slanting decks, changing their positions as new notions about the sailing of the vessel came to them. They seemed so pleased with each other and with everything--exchanging their private little jokes and relishing the odd sc.r.a.ps culled from favorite authors that each brought out in the talk, as old friends can. Maurice made love to her in the openest way--every glance straight into her deep-sea eyes. Not possessing a muscle or a figure, he wooed her with his wits and a certain virtuous boldness that a.s.serted his unmixed admiration and his quaint ideas with some force.

And she to him was partly motherly, chiefly sisterly, and partly coquettish, like one who accepts the admiration of half a score before her girlish fancies are gathered into the great egotism of the one who shall reign thrice-crowned. Just look at Geoffrey now, as he nears this schooner, steering the yacht as she comes up behind and to leeward of the big vessel that majestically spurns the waves into half an acre of foam. They tell him he can't weather her, that he'll have to bear away.

Now look at his muscular full neck and thick crisp curls. See his jaw grow rigid and his eye flash as he calculates the weight of the wind and the shape of the sea, the set of the sails, and the distances.

Obviously, a man to have his way. Objections do not affect him. See how Margaret's eyes sweep quickly from the schooner back to Geoffrey, to watch what he is doing. Why is it when they say he can't do it that it never occurs to her that he won't? She looks at him open-eyed and thoughtful, and thinks it is fine to carry the courage of one's opinions to success, and she smiles as the yacht skillfully evades the main-boom of the schooner and saws up on her windward side.

The sunrise that Maurice saw early in the morning was too sweet to be wholesome. As the day wore on, the barometer grew unsteady. A leaden scud came flying overhead, and the fellows began to wonder whether they would have to thrash around Long Point all night. A good many opinions were pa.s.sed on the weather, which certainly did not look promising.

Margaret suggested that it would be more comfortable to go into port, but was just as well pleased to hear that they had either to go about forty miles further for a shelter or else run back to Cobourg. Presque Isle was not spoken of, since it was too shallow and intricate to enter safely at night. Lemons suggested that they should go back and anchor under Nicholas Island, where they had lunched.

"Might as well look for needle in a hay-stack," said Charley. "It's going to be as black as a pocket when daylight is gone. And if you did get there it is no place to anchor on a night like this."

Jack did not say anything. He knew that Charley would go on to South Bay, and he looked forward to another night of it round Long Point. The only person who cared much what was done was Mr. Lemons. Towards evening he began to think about the next meal.

"My dear skipper, how can you ever get a dinner cooked in such a sea as this? The cook will never be able to prepare anything in such a commotion," said he regretfully.

"Won't he!" exclaimed Charley decisively. "Just wait and see. My men understand that they have to cook if the vessel never gets up off her beam ends."

"What, you do not mean to say it will be all--" Mr. Lemons came and laid his head on Charley's shoulder--"that it will be all just as it was yesterday? Oh, say that it will. 'Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples.'"

"Get up--off me, you fat lump," cried Charley, pushing him away vehemently. "I say that we will do better to-day, or we'll put the cook in irons. I hate a measly fellow who gives in just when you want him. I have sacked four stewards and six cooks about this very thing, and it is a sore subject with me."

"De-lightful man," said Lemons, gazing rapturously at Charley.

"Rankin will tell you," said Jack. "He drew the papers. The whole thing is down in black and white."

"True enough," said Maurice. "But I don't see how signing papers will teach a man to cook on the side of a stove, when the ship is lying over and pitching like this."

"No more do I," said Lemons anxiously.

"Why, man alive!" said Charley, "the whole stove works something like a compa.s.s, don't-you-know. He has got it all swinging--slung in irons."

"That is far better than having the cook in irons," suggested Margaret.

"Oh!" said Mr. Lemons, as he gazed at the sky, "that remark appeals to me. The lady is correct."

Then he arose and grasped Charley in a vice-like grip, for though fat he was powerful. He pinned the skipper to the deck and sat upon him.

"Say, dearest," he cooed into his ear, "at about what hour will this heavenly-repast be ready?"

"Pull him off--somebody!" groaned Charley. "I hate a man that has to be thrown in the water to--" a thump on the back silenced him.

"May I convey your commands to the Minister of the Interior," asked his tormentor.

"Oh, my ribs! Yes. Tell him to begin at it at once."

"I don't mind if I do," said Mr. Lemons sagaciously; and he disappeared down the companion-way to interview the cook.

"Ain't he a brick?" said Charley, after Lemons had gone forward. "He's a regular one-er, that chap! Give him his meals on time and he's the gamest old sardine. By the way, let us have a sweepstake on the time we drop anchor in South Bay."

"We haven't any money in these togs," said Geoffrey.

"Well, you'll all have to owe it, then. We'll imagine there's a quarter apiece in the pool."

Margaret wanted to know what was to be done. It was explained that each person had to write his name on a folded paper with the time he thought anchor would be dropped in South Bay. The names were read out afterward.

They all, with two exceptions, ranged between one o'clock at night and seven the next morning. The sea was running tremendously high and the wind dead ahead. It was now seven o'clock in the evening and with some thirty-five miles yet to beat to windward. What surprised them all was that Jack had chosen ten o'clock and Charley half-past ten of the same evening. They explained that they had based their ideas on the clouds.

"If you look carefully," said Jack, "you'll see that close to this lower scud coming from the east, there is a lighter cloud flying out the south and west."

"I wish, Jack, you had not come on this trip," said Charley. "I could make lots of money if you were not on board."

Sure enough, the yacht began to point up nearer and nearer to her course, soon after they spoke. Presently she lay her course, with the sheet lightly started, mounting over the head seas like a race-horse, and roaring straight into the oncoming walls of water till it seemed as if her bowsprit would be whipped out. The wind kept veering till at last they had a quarterly breeze driving them forcibly into the seas that had been rising all day. Ordinarily they would have shortened sail to ease the boat, but now that dinner was ordered for half-past nine o'clock, they drove her through it in order that they might dine in calm water.

They raced past the revolving light on Long Point faster than they had expected to pa.s.s it that night. The twenty-five miles run from here was made in darkness and gloom. The boom was topped up to keep it out of the water, and the peak of the reefed mainsail was dropped, as the increasing gale threatened to bury the bows too much in the head seas.

Although early enough in the evening, everything around was, as Charley had predicted, as black as a pocket. Now and then some rain drove over them. Maurice and Margaret sat out together on deck, wrapped in heavy coats, and watched what little they could see. The howling of the wind and roaring of the black surges beneath them were new experiences. Close to them was Jack, standing at the wheel, tooling her through. By the binnacle-light his face, which was about all that could be seen, seemed to be filled with a grave contentment that broke into a grim smile when the boat surged into a wall of water that would have stopped a bluff-bowed craft. Soon after dropping Long Point, he leaned over the hatchway and called down to Charley, who was lying on his back on gay cushions, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. "Got the Duck Light, skip."

"All right, old boy. Wire in."

Dusenall turned over his newspaper, but did not take the trouble to come on deck to investigate.

"Say!" he called.

"h.e.l.lo."

"Won't she take the peak again? I've got a terrible twist on me for dinner."

"No. Bare poles is more what she wants just now," said Jack.

"The deuce! Who's forrud?"

"Billy and Joe."

"All right. Must be damp for 'em up there."