Three Boys Part 41

"She couldna shoot a hare," grumbled Scoodrach, rubbing his arm; and then, after looking very thoughtful and nervous, Max spoke out.

"I am going down to the boat," he said quietly; "and I shall try and set the sail, and go back to Dunroe."

"Bravo! hooray!" cried Kenneth. "That's your sort; only the wind isn't quite right, and you'll have to tack."

"To tack what--the sail?"

"No, no, I don't mean nail the sail to the mast."

"Oh, I remember; go backwards and forwards with the boat."

"There, Scoody!" cried Kenneth triumphantly; "I only wish you had got as much brains in your old red head as he has."

"Ret's a ferry coot colour for a het," grumbled Scoodrach, who was very sore, and who kept on gently rubbing the spot where he had given himself "such a ding."

"Good-bye!" cried Max. "I'll get back as soon as I can."

"That's right. Don't go to my father. Tell old Tavish and Long Shon, and they're to bring a strong rope."

"Yes; I won't forget."

"And steer with one hand, and hold the sheet in the other," cried Kenneth. "Don't do as I did. Good-bye, old chap; you're not a bad fellow after all."

"Oh, if I was only as strong and as clever as they are!" said Max to himself. "Well, what is it?"

This was to Sneeshing, who stood barking at him sharply, and then ran back to crouch on the edge of the precipice, where he could peer down at his master and at Scoodrach, who was still chafing his arm.

Max half wondered at himself, as, in his excitement, he slid and scrambled down the steep gully, getting over places and making bounds which he dared not have attempted half an hour earlier. The consequence was that he got down to the sh.o.r.e in a way which surprised himself, and then scrambled over the debris of fallen rocks to where the rope secured the boat to the stone.

It was no easy task to undo Scood's knot, but he worked at it, and, as he did so, wondered whether it was possible to make use of the cordage of the boat to take up and let down to the imprisoned pair, but he was fain to confess that, even doubled, there was nothing sufficiently trustworthy for the purpose; and, after throwing in the line, he gave the boat a good thrust as he leaped aboard, and then, as it glided out, found himself in a position which made his heart beat, as he wondered whether he would ever get safe to land.

Trying to recall the action of Scoodrach at starting, he seized the rope and began to haul upon the yard, to find, to his great delight, that it rose steadily and well, the line running quite easily through the block till the gaff was pretty well in its place, and the sail gave a flap which startled him and made the boat careen.

Then he stopped short, hardly knowing what to do next, but the right idea came, and he made the rope fast, crept back cautiously over the thwart to seat himself by the tiller, and, almost to his wonder, found that the boat was running easily along.

Taking the handle of the tiller and the sheet, he drew a breath of relief, for the whole business was easier than he expected, and already he was fifty yards from the face of the cliff, and gaining speed, when he heard a hail.

"Max! Ahoy!"

He looked sharply round and up, to see Kenneth waving his glengarry; and his next words sounded faint in the great s.p.a.ce:

"Starboard! starboard! Going wrong."

To put his helm to starboard was so much Arabic to Max, but he had turned the handle in one direction, and he was going wrong, so he felt that to turn it the other way must be right. Pressing hard, then, he found that what he did had the effect of turning the boat half round, and making it go more slowly and diagonally in the direction from which the wind blew, and somewhat more toward the shelf where his friends were imprisoned, so that he could see them waving their caps, as moment by moment they seemed more distant.

And now, for the first time, as he caught sight of a pile of ruins far away to his right, he realised that he had been going away from Dunroe, which lay to the south, while now he was sailing south-east; and his spirits rose as he felt that he must be right in trying to reach that castle, which he remembered as being one that Kenneth had pointed out.

He turned his head again in the direction of the shelf, and there, high up, were the two boys, still waving their caps, either by way of encouragement or to try and give him advice by signs. But he could not tell which, neither could he signal in turn, for both hands were full; so, setting his teeth, and with a wonderful feeling of exhilaration and excitement, at which he was surprised, he devoted himself to his task.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A TERRIBLE JOURNEY.

Bailing a boat is like most other things, it has to be learned, and it is a puzzling thing to grasp the meaning of the way in which it seems to act.

To sit and hold the rudder and go right away with the wind dead astern is not so difficult, but to try and sail a boat with the wind almost in your teeth, is, at the first time of asking, rather a strain upon the unaccustomed mind. The first thing which Max discovered was that, as soon as the sail was up, the boat seemed to try to take, so to speak, the bit in its teeth and run off to the north; the next, that he held in the tiller whip, spur, reins, everything for governing this strangely-mobile creature, and at the hint from Kenneth he had changed its course.

But now, as it could not go north, the boat seemed to be trying to go due east, and, with the sail well filled and careening over, she literally rushed through the water, which sparkled in her wake.

"But he said I must tack," thought Max. "Why not try and sail straight away?"

He tried to do this by turning the tiller more and more, but as he did so the speed of the boat grew less and less, and finally she stood still, with the sail shivering, and when he gave the sheet a shake, the sail gradually filled on the other side; the boat's head swung round, and he found that he was rushing due west, straight for the cliff upon which Kenneth and Scoodrach were watching his course.

For a few moments Max lost his head--metaphorically, of course, and not Carlistically. He sat, tiller in hand, gazing aghast at the great wall of rock with the rugged _debris_ of fallen ma.s.ses at the bottom, upon which in a very few minutes the boat would rush with a sharp crash, and then, mistily and in a chaotic manner, he realised that there would be a miniature wreck, similar on a small scale to those of which he had so often read in the papers.

"What shall I do?" he gasped; and he gazed away to the right, at where he could see the two boys upon their shelf, too far away for their voices to be heard.

There was no help or advice to be had, so he was thrown back upon his own brain for the very best help there is in the world--self-help; and, making a bold grasp, as it was hovering in a mist, he caught his lost head again, and held it tightly.

As he did this, he recalled that he held the guiding principle of the boat in his hand, pressed the tiller hard, and, to his great delight, the little vessel made a beautiful curve, ran right up in the wind, the sail flapped and shivered, there came a puff of wind that seemed to be reflected from the tall cliff, the sail filled on the other side, the boat careened over, and away he was rushing right merrily again.

It was none too soon, for, as the boat curved round, he was within forty yards of some black rocks, whose weed-hung heads were just level with the water.

But in those few minutes he had gained one splendid bit of experience in the management of a boat, namely, that he had but to keep his head and be cool, and then he could guide the craft wherever he pleased.

His spirits rose at this, as the little vessel glided rapidly on, now toward the west, and he knew that when he was close to the far side of the loch he had but to reverse the action with the rudder, and turn and come back.

There was a beautiful breeze, and he span along, his face flushed, eyes sparkling, and his heart beating fast with excitement. It was most enjoyable. He could manage the boat,--so he thought,--but by degrees he began to grasp the fact that if he kept on he would be going to and fro over the same water, and he wanted to go due south, and not east and west.

Then came back what Kenneth had said about tacking, and by degrees he more fully mastered what he had to learn, namely, that he must use the rudder, and force the boat to go south-east instead of east, and, in returning, south-west instead of west, so as to cross and recross the loch diagonally, or in a zigzag course, so that at each tack he would be farther south.

To his great delight, he found, by keeping a firm hand upon the rudder, he could do this, but it proved to be such slow work that he began to experimentalise a little more, and, instead of sailing south-east and south-west, he contrived to keep the boat's head so that he sailed south-south-east and south-south-west. Later on, when with the two lads, and Scoodrach at the tiller, he found that, had he known, he could have made more southing each tack, for the little boat could sail wonderfully close to the wind.

It was still slow work to one who was effervescing with eagerness to reach Dunroe and obtain help, and over and over again, as the distance seemed so long, Max shivered with dread lest he should have overshot the mark and pa.s.sed the place.

It seemed impossible that they could have gone so far. But no; there was the castle which they had pa.s.sed on the right, and there was the other that they had glided by on the left--now, of course, with the positions reversed. So, gaining confidence, and feeling wonderfully self-satisfied at the way he could sail a boat, he sped on.

Fortunately for him, the breeze was just perfect and as steady as could be, and he knew nothing of the risks to which he was exposed. He sailed on by narrow gorge and ravine--openings in the great hills--in profound ignorance of the fact that through any of these a violent squall of wind might come with a whistle and shriek, catch the sail and lay it flat upon the water, while the boat filled and went down.

Then, too, he was happily ignorant of the sets of the tide and the wild currents which raced through some of the channels, and of the hundreds of rocks which lay below the surface, ready to catch the keel or rip open the thin planks of a boat.

Max saw none of these dangers,--he did not even dream of them,--but sat with flushed face, gazing onward, as he skimmed in exhilarating motion over the sunny sea.

"I do like sailing," he said to himself, in spite of the hand which held the sheet, at which the sail s.n.a.t.c.hed and tugged, beginning to ache, and the other which grasped the rudder feeling numb. For the moment, too, he forgot that the sun did not always shine, and that the sea rose angrily, and that there were such things as storms.

All went quite smoothly, however, for about three parts of the distance, when all at once a peculiar washing sound reached his ears; and, gazing in the direction from which it came, he became aware of the fact that there was some water in the bottom of the boat, gliding here and there as the little vessel gave to the pressure of the wind.