Wyndham's Pal. Harold Bindloss
swing across and mast or boom would go. For all that, he risked a glance over his shoulder now and then. Some of the boats were coming up; they were bigger craft and gave Red Rose time by the handicap. She, however, gave time to others, and must save it in order to win.
Wyndham let go while the sea got rough, for the flood tide now ran against the freshening wind. While he swayed with the tiller she plunged and rolled about, lifting her bows out of boiling foam and sometimes burying them deep. Water flowed across her deck and presently began to splash beneath the cockpit floor, and Charley started the clanking pump. A full moon had risen and two big boats, with canvas that cut black against the silver light, were getting near.
"I think we'll save our time," Wyndham said.
Marston looked at the high topsail and bending spinnaker boom. He would have liked to haul the topsail down, but his comrade's voice had a strange gay note that he had heard before. Harry meant to carry on; he would drive the boat until something broke. Then Marston looked ahead. The big promontory was not far off and moonlight touched the towering crags. The sea was all white, for the current, setting strongly round the head, ran in angry combers against the wind.
"We are going to get wet in the tide-race," he said. "You might find slacker water if you edged her off a bit."
"And sail a longer course?" Wyndham rejoined. "We give Deva four minutes and she's not far astern."
Marston acquiesced. After all, his business was to obey. "Oh, well," he said, "Charley and I had better get out on the booms."
He beckoned the paid hand and they crawled along the deck. Red Rose rolled savagely and main boom and spinnaker boom tossed their ends aloft. The spars must be kept down, lest they swing across, and Marston, clasping the varnished pole with arms and legs, crawled out as far as he dared. Sometimes he swung high above the combers that rushed past below; and sometimes swung down until his body was wet by the foam. He could hold on if Harry kept her straight, but if she swerved much the big sails would lurch across and he and Charley would hardly escape with broken bones. He looked aft. Wyndham's figure cut against the light; it was tense and his head was motionless, as if his glance was fixed. Marston knew he meant to bring Red Rose in on her time allowance or sail her under.
They drew round the head and reeled across a bay. A row of lights began to blink and two colored lanterns tossed. Marston saw the lights for a few moments when the spinnaker soared away from the boom. The race was nearly over, for the colored lights marked the flag-boat, anchored off the long iron pier. The committee had not given the yachts much room; perhaps they thought of their comfort and anchored the steamer near the beach so she would not roll about. Smart work would be needed to shorten sail before they struck the pier.
A shadow touched the spinnaker and Marston looked astern. A swaying pyramid of canvas shut out the moon and foam leaped about a plunging hull. Ptarmigan had crept up and would go past, but she was large and allowed Red Rose some time. Marston could not remember how much she allowed; all he could do was to hold on, for his arms ached and his head began to swim. A few minutes would finish the race, and he wondered dully what would happen then. There were, perhaps, two hundred yards between the flag-boat and the pier; they ought to haul down the spinnaker now, but Harry would carry on.
He saw Ptarmigan's topsail tilt downwards and dark figures run about her deck. Her spinnaker collapsed like a torn balloon, but Red Rose leaped on, pressed by straining sail. Then there was a flash, and the report of a gun rolled among the crags ahead. They drove into the smoke, speeding side by side with Ptarmigan, and the flash of another gun pierced the dark. Marston, crawling in-board, dropped into the cockpit as the flag-boat swept astern, and for the next few minutes he was desperately occupied.
The spinnaker went into the sea, the topsail thrashed half-way up the mast, and Red Rose listed until the water was deep on her lee deck. A white sea swept her forward as they hauled down the staysail; and then, coming round, she plunged head to wind, a few yards from the dark ironwork of the pier. Wyndham came to help and soon afterwards they brought her to a safe anchorage. While they stowed the sails a gig crossed the bows and somebody shouted: "Well done, Red Rose! You're first by three minutes on handicap time."
Wyndham put on his jacket and lighted a cigarette. "Not bad for a boat I bought because she was outclassed. Sometimes I wonder what I could do if I had proper tools," he said. Then he laughed. "Anyhow, we had better start the pump."
CHAPTER II
MOONLIGHT AND GLAMOUR
Rockets leaped up from the old castle on the narrow flat between the woods and the strait. Colored fires burned behind the loopholes in the ruined walls, and an admiring crowd occupied the lawn that slanted to the water. The night was calm and when the band stopped the voices of a choir, singing old part-songs on the pier, carried well. There was a smell of drying seaweed, and the yachts' anchor-lights burned steadily in rows that wavered with the eddying tide. The last race was over and the townsfolk had given the crews a feast before the fleet dispersed.
Marston sat on a broken wall, talking to Deva's owner about the race along the coast. Elliot was a friend of Marston's. Chisholm, the commodore's young son, stood close by, smoking a cigarette.
"You beat us handsomely and Wyndham deserves the cup for his pluck in carrying on when we were forced to lower our topsail," Elliot admitted. "Still something was due to luck; you got the last of the stream along the shore when the tide running down the river carried the rest of us back."
"Wyndham has a talent for that kind of thing," said Marston. "Sometimes you feel he, so to speak, thinks like a fish. He doesn't need to calculate when the tide will turn and where he'll find slack water. He knows."
"Wyndham has a talent for getting what he wants," Chisholm interposed. "Deva ought to have beaten Red Rose."
"Aren't you rather young to judge?" Marston asked, with a touch of dryness.
"Oh, well," said the lad, "I like a man who loses now and then. You can understand that kind of fellow."
Elliot frowned. He could take a beating; but he was curious and looked at Marston thoughtfully.
"I suppose you didn't see the Knoll buoy?"
"We did not," Marston replied. "There was something on the water in the haze, but it was too small for the buoy. Wyndham thought it a gull, a big black-back; his sight is pretty good."
"How did the thing bear?"
Marston hesitated, because he saw where the question led, but he was honest.
"Nearly ahead; a point or two to starboard. Anyhow, it vanished, although, as we didn't change our course, we must have passed the spot rather close," he replied, forgetting that he was below when the object vanished.
"Then it was a gull," Elliot agreed, but Chisholm was not satisfied.
"Elliot's a sportsman; I don't know if I am or not, because I was on board Deva and feel hurt we didn't get the cup. Wyndham's a smart skipper, but his luck's too good. One's inclined to doubt a man who always gets a prize. My notion is, it isn't altogether due to skill. Besides, I think the commodore would have liked Elliot to win the cup."
"You're not a tactful lad and perhaps you're not in very good form just now," Elliot remarked. "We'll go along and hear the band."
They went off and Marston lighted his pipe. He was rather angry with young Chisholm, because he was persuaded Wyndham had not seen the buoy. Harry was not the man to win a race by a shabby trick; Marston trusted his friends.
In the meantime, Wyndham and Flora Chisholm occupied a bench in a quiet corner of the castle wall. Now and then a colored fire blazed up on the battlements and red reflections flickered about the crowded lawn, but there were dark intervals when they saw the water sparkle and the black hills across the strait. When the band