Thrice Armed

Valentine looked up at the hard blue sky across which ragged cloud-wisps were driving, and nodded. "It generally does blow quite fresh after rain like what we have had," he said. "You could break the anchor out yourself. I want Louis to get a good load of bark."

Jimmy went ashore with Louis, who carried a big axe, but by and by he left the latter busy, and wandered back to the beach. He did not like the angry glare of sunlight and the way the wind fell in whirling gusts down the steep hillside. As it happened, another big log drove by while he stood among the boulders, and remembering that the two girls were alone in the yacht, he launched the canoe, and sat still, just dipping the paddle, while the stream swept him down to the Sorata. When he boarded her she was swinging uneasily in a swirl of muddy current, and Anthea, who sat in the cockpit, appeared pleased to see him.

"One would almost fancy it was going to blow very hard," she said.

Jimmy laughed. "I believe it is; but we should be snug against anything in the little cove yonder with a rope or two ashore. I wonder whether you could sheer her for me while I break out the anchor?"

The girl went to the tiller, and while Jimmy, standing forward, plied the little winch, the cable slowly rattled in. Then he broke out the anchor, and the boat slid astern until a cove, where dark fir branches stretched out over the still, deep water, opened up. Dropping the anchor, he turned to the girl.

"Starboard!" he said.

Anthea shoved over her tiller; but the Sorata did not swing into the cove as Jimmy had expected her to do, for a blast that set the pines roaring fell from the hillside and drove her out from the shore. Jimmy let more chain run, and stood still looking about him, when he felt the anchor grip. The sunlight had faded, obscured by ragged clouds, the tall pines swayed above him, and the Sorata had swung well out athwart the stream.

"Since I can't kedge her with this breeze, I'll take a line ashore and warp her in," he said.

It appeared advisable, for there were more pine-logs coming down, and he pitched a coil of rope into the canoe; but the rest, as he discovered, was much more difficult. Jimmy had been used to boats in which one could stand up and row, while a Siwash river canoe is a very different kind of craft. As a result, he several times almost capsized her, and lost a good deal of ground when a gust struck her lifted prow; so that some time had passed when the line brought him up still a few yards from the beach. He looked around at the Sorata with a shout.

"I want a few more fathoms," he called. "Can you fasten on the other line, Miss Merril?"

He saw the girl, who moved forward along the deck, stop and clutch at a shroud, but that was all, for just then the dark firs roared and the water seethed white about him as he plied the paddle. The canoe turned around in spite of him, drove out into the stream, and, while he strove desperately to steer her, struck the Sorata with a crash. The boat lifted her side a little as he swung himself on board, and there was a curious harsh grating forward. Anthea, who stepped down into the cockpit, had lost her hat, and her hair whipped her face.

"I think she has started her anchor," she said.

Jimmy was sure of it when he ran forward and let several fathoms of chain run without bringing her up, for the bottom was apparently shingle washed down from the hillside.

"We'll have to get the kedge over," he said.

He dropped unceremoniously into the saloon, where Miss Austerly lay on the settee, and tore up the floorings, beneath which, as space is valuable on board a craft of the Sorata's size, the smaller anchor is sometimes kept. He could not, however, find it anywhere, and when he swung himself, hot and breathless, out on deck, the yacht was driving seaward stern foremost, taking her anchor with her, while the whole Inlet was ridged with lines of white. Anthea Merril looked at him with suppressed apprehension in her eyes.

"We must get a warp ashore somehow," he said. "I might sheer her in under the staysail."

The girl went forward with him, and gasped as they hauled together at the halyard which hoisted the sail; and when half of it was up, she sped aft to the tiller, and Jimmy made desperate efforts to shorten in the cable. There was another cove not far astern into which he might work the boat. The anchor, however, came away before he expected it, and, though he did not think it was the girl's fault, the half-hoisted sail swung over, and the Sorata, in place of creeping back toward the beach, drove away toward the opposite shore, where the stream swept over ragged rock. Jimmy, jumping aft, seized the tiller, and while the Inlet seethed into little splashing ridges the Sorata swept on seaward with the breeze astern. He stood still a moment, gasping, and then, while the girl looked at him with inquiring eyes, signed her to take the helm again.

"I must get the trysail on her, and try to beat her back. We may be able to do it – I don't know," he said. "It's deep water along those rocks, and she'd chafe through and go down; otherwise I'd ram her ashore."

He spent several arduous minutes tearing every spare sail out of the stern locker before he reached the one he wanted, and it was at least five minutes more before he had laced it to its gaff, while by then there were only jagged rocks, over which the sea that washed into the open entrance to the Inlet seethed whitely, under the Sorata's lee. Jimmy glanced at them, and quietly lashed the trysail gaff to the boom before he turned to Anthea Merril.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We couldn't stay her under the trysail with the puffs twisting all ways flung back by the trees. Besides, she'd probably drive down upon the reefs before I got it up. It's quite evident we can't go ashore there."

The girl glanced ahead, and her heart sank a little as she saw the long Pacific roll heave across the opening in big gray slopes that were ridged with froth. Then she turned to Jimmy, who stood regarding her gravely in the steamboat jacket, burst shoes, and man-o'-war cap, and a look of confidence crept into her eyes. She felt that this man could be depended on.

"We shall have to run out to sea?" she asked.

Jimmy nodded, and she was glad that he answered frankly, as to one who was his equal in courage.

"There is no help for it," he said. "Still, she'll go clear of the shore as she is, and I don't think we need be anxious about her when she's under trysail in open water."

Anthea looked at him again, with a spot of color in her cheek.

"It may blow for several days," she said. "If I can help in any way – "

"You can," said Jimmy abruptly. "Go down now and fix Miss Austerly and yourself something to eat. You mightn't be able to do it afterwards. Then you can bring me up some bread and coffee."

Anthea disappeared into the saloon with her cheeks tingling and a curious smile in her eyes. She understood what had happened. Now that they were at close grip with the elements, Jimmy had asserted himself in primitive fashion, and he could, she felt, be trusted to do his part.

CHAPTER VIII

JIMMY TAKES COMMAND

Darkness was closing down on the waste of tumbling foam, and the Sorata was clear of the shore, when Jimmy made shift to hoist the trysail reduced by two reefs to a narrow strip of drenched canvas. Then, while Anthea Merril held the helm, he proceeded to set the little spitfire jib. However, he clung to the weather-shrouds, gasping and dripping with perspiration for the first few moments, because the struggle with the trysail had tried his strength. Indeed, Anthea, who stood bareheaded at the helm with her loosened hair whipping about her, wondered how he had contrived to do it alone in that strength of wind.

His figure, shapeless in the streaming oilskins, cut darkly against the livid foam as the Sorata swung her bows high above the sea, and then was almost lost in a filmy cloud as she plunged and buried them in the breast of a big comber. Suddenly, however, he dropped on hands and knees, and, crouching with one arm around the forestay, hauled the strip of canvas out along the bowsprit until once more a sea smote the Sorata and he sank into a rush of foam. The girl caught her breath as she waited until the boat swung her head out again, for it was very evident that the man alone stood between her and destruction.

He swung into sight, clinging with an arm around jib and bowsprit until he staggered to his feet, and a strip of sailcloth that went aloft beat him with its wet folds amidst a frantic banging. Anthea scarcely dared to look at him as he struggled with the rope that hoisted it, and she gasped with relief when at last he came scrambling back and pushed her from the tiller.

"Thanks!" he said. "Go down and get Miss Austerly on to the leeward settee, and then try to sleep. The boat ought to lie-to dryly until the morning, but I can't leave the tiller."

Anthea just heard him through the turmoil of the sea, and did not resent the grasp he had laid on her shoulder. Quietly imperious as she usually was, it seemed only fitting that she should obey him then. She went down through the little companion, and Jimmy, pulling the slide to after her, settled himself for his long night-watch as darkness rolled down upon the sea. He was anxious, but not unduly so, for the boat was high of side and able; and a comparatively small craft will usually ride out a vicious breeze if one can keep her hove-to under a strip or two of sail, so as to meet the sea while not forging through it with her weather-bow. Indeed, after the first half-hour he felt somewhat reassured, and his thoughts went back to a subject which had occupied them somewhat frequently of late, and that, not unnaturally, was Anthea Merril.

She was, he knew, the daughter of the man who was ruining his father, but that was an incident and no fault of hers. It was, he fancied, clear that she knew nothing about Merril's business operations, and was unacquainted with one aspect of his character. In fact, it seemed to him that there was a painful shock in store for her when she made the discovery. He had never met a woman with so much that compelled his appreciation besides her physical beauty. Her quiet graciousness and courage had their effect on him, and he was sure, at least, that he would never feel quite the same regard for anybody else. Indeed, he admitted that she was a woman with whom he might have fallen in love had circumstances been propitious, but, as they certainly were not, he strove to assure himself that he had sense and will enough to refrain from thinking more of her than was advisable.

These reflections were, however, fragmentary, for the boat required attention, and he fancied that a good deal of water was finding its way into her. The Sorata would not lie-to without somebody at the helm, and he could only leave the tiller lashed for a few minutes now and then while he labored at the little rotary pump. Once or twice when he did so, a foot of brine came frothing into the cockpit across the coaming, and he commenced to wonder how long the breeze would last, for he was becoming sensible that another twelve hours of it would probably be as much as he could stand.

In the meanwhile the night was wearing through, and at last a faint light crept up from the east across the waste of tumbling seas. They were not by any means mountainous, for as a matter of fact it is very probable that the biggest ocean sea scarcely exceeds forty feet between its trough and summit, but they rolled up out of the northwest in a continuous phalanx of steep, gray ridges crested with spouting froth that looked quite big enough. The drift whirled across them, and now and then wrapped the craft in wisps of filmy smoke, while Jimmy, with smarting and temporarily blinded eyes, trusted to the feel of the tiller. He was as wet as he could be, as well as stiff and cold, and it was with relief and some astonishment that he saw the saloon companion open, and Miss Merril appear with a plate and a jug of steaming coffee.

Her skirt was woefully bedraggled, from which he surmised that there was more water than there should be in the saloon, and her hair was promptly powdered with glistening spray; but her face was quiet, and she sat down collectedly, huddling herself on a locker, where the after bulkhead of the saloon partly sheltered her. Jimmy dropped into the cockpit, and crouched there with the tiller against his shoulder, for nobody could have eaten in the face of that wind. Then he stretched out a hand for the coffee.

"I'm unusually glad to get it. It was very kind of you," he said.

Anthea smiled. "Why?" she asked. "Are you sure it wasn't selfishness? We couldn't take the boat home without you, and a man must eat if he has to go on with this kind of task."

Jimmy looked at her, and, finding no very apposite rejoinder, nodded. "Well," he said, "I suppose he must; but did you get anything for yourself or Miss Austerly? You can't live on nothing any more than I can. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to after what I've noticed in the mail-boat's saloons."

He was aware that he had made a slip, but fancied it had escaped his companion's attention, which, of course, displayed very little perspicacity. In the meanwhile, he got a turn of the weather tiller line round a cleat, and lowered himself further until he sat in the cockpit with several inches of water swishing about him.

"Nellie is asleep at last. I did not awaken her," said his companion.

"That isn't all I asked. Did you get anything yourself?"

The girl said she had not done so, and for a moment there was the faintest suspicion of color in her face.

"Then you will share what you have brought with me," said Jimmy.

"There isn't a cup. I couldn't find one that wasn't broken. The forecastle shelf has torn away."

"You couldn't have kept the coffee in it if you had. Take what you want before it gets cold," and Jimmy pointed to the jug.

Anthea raised it to her lips, and then pushed it back along the cockpit floor, while, though she had not meant to do so, she flashed a swift glance at her companion when he held it in his hand. As it happened, Jimmy looked at her just then, and she saw the little glint in his eyes. He felt that she had done so, and, while he would not have had it happen, let his gaze rest on her steadily while he made her a little inclination. Then he drank, and, after he had thrust the plate in her direction, broke off a portion of bread and canned meat; some of which crumbled and stuck to his wet oilskins.