CHAPTER XXII
In Which the Capes of Virginia Are In Sight
We had a stiff wind blowing—half a gale, indeed—and when we raised other sailing ships, their canvas was clewed down and some of them were running under little more than stormsails. But neither the captain of the Seamew nor of the Gullwing had any intention of losing a breath of such a favorable breeze.
Our ship heeled over until her rail was under water; and she was laden so heavily that this sort of sailing was perilous. Suppose some of the cargo should shift? Where would we be? Well, just about there, I guess!
“Some day the old man will carry the sticks out of her completely,” growled Mr. Gates to Mr. Barney.
“Well, let him!” exclaimed the second mate. “We’ve got to win this time.”
“What for?” I heard the other ask, curiously. “Just so Cap’n Joe will win his greening apple?”
Mr. Barney cursed the captain and his apple.
“You want us to win anyway, eh?” pursued Mr. Gates, in his slow, thoughtful way. “No matter what happens to the Gullwing?”
“She’s insured; so’s her freight,” snapped Mr. Barney.
“It doesn’t matter if both good ships should founder and be lost?”
“I don’t give a hang!” exclaimed the younger man, bitterly, “as long as the Gullwing goes down fifty fathoms nearer Baltimore than the Seamew.”
“And how about the crews?”
“Who’s thinking of men—or ships—just now?” demanded Mr. Barney. “Aren’t both captains risking lives and property for a silly competition? I’m no worse than they are.”
“And so, the rivalry of Cap’n Joe and Cap’n Si will excuse your own mad determination to get to port first?” suggested Mr. Gates, quietly. “I don’t believe you’ll feel that way, young man, twelve months from now. And how about the little girl?”
“Pshaw! there’s no danger,” said Mr. Barney, lightly.
“I hope there will be no danger—no more than there is now, at least,” said the mate, significantly. Then he saw me on lookout and said, irritably: “Come away! This is no place to talk.”
I wondered what the mate thought Mr. Barney would do for the sake of helping the Gullwing to win the race; but I heard nothing more of their conversation. This occurred in the evening when we could just see the ghostly sails of the Seamew as she stood on for us. Mr. Barney soon after took the wheel himself, it being the captain’s watch. From that point on to the end the second mate was more frequently at the wheel than at any previous time during the cruise.
Day and night the two huge schooners ran almost even. Our skipper was seldom off the deck. I don’t know when he found time to sleep. He never lost a chance to make the most of a puff of wind. The men worked for him eagerly and well; but they stood double watches.
Some of the small sails Cap’n Joe even had us dip overboard so that, well wetted, they would better hold the wind. It was four bells in the morning watch when the Seamew crossed our bow. She had been trying for it for twenty-four hours, or more. And when she cut us off and we had to take her white water, a groan of derision was raised by her crew.
We were sore—every man Jack of us. Cap’n Joe and Cap’n Si had it hot and heavy from their respective stations.
“Better give us a line aboard so’t we can tow ye in, Joe!” bawled Cap’n Si.
“You air mighty willin’ to give a helpin’ hand jest now, Si,” returned our skipper, with scorn. “But it warn’t allus so.”
I saw Mr. Alf Barney at the Seamew’s wheel. He handled the ship splendidly. When the Seamew came about on the other tack, her helmsman met the waves just right and swung her over so that the sails scarcely shook at all. She reared up on one tack, turned as it were on her heel, and swept away on the other tack at a speed that sent the spray flying high above her rail. It was a pretty sight.
Our Mr. Barney stood right beside me as I manipulated the Gullwing’s helm. He watched the handling of our rival with lowering brow.
“Gimme that wheel!” he snapped, pushing me away and seizing the spokes. The Gullwing was right in the eye of the wind. Cap’n Bowditch was shouting his orders. If the Seamew had rounded prettily, the Gullwing went her one better. We wasted less time hanging in the wind than the Seamew.
“That’s the way to do it!” bawled our skipper, dancing on the quarter. “By jinks, Mr. Barney, you handled that wheel well. Keep her so! Steady.”
The second mate let me take the wheel again after a minute or two; and his face had remained unsmiling all the time. He had merely been determined to show them all that he could handle the big ship’s helm as well in every particular as did his brother.
Our course was west-northwest now to the Capes of Virginia. The fresh gale was out of the same quarter. Therefore we had to beat to windward all the remainder of the race, and although the Seamew had gotten a little the start of us, the Gullwing had a slight advantage. She handled better to windward than her sister ship.
The Seamew stood off on one tack, we on the other. She disappeared beyond the sea line, but standing in some hours later we found her again—and finding her were pleased more than a little in seeing that we had made something up on her. Our skipper’s shrewdness was telling.
I knew how it was with Cap’n Si; when things broke wrong for him he paddled about the deck, cursing the hands and the wind and various other things, altogether irrational. Whereas our skipper never lost a trick, kept his head, and never gave an order he was sorry for—and that last is saying a good deal.
We filled away once more and stood back to her. We were making distance fast. Had we held on this time we should have crossed her wake almost under her stern. The man aloft suddenly sang out:
“Land, ho!”
I heard the cry repeated in the Seamew’s tops.
“Cape Henry, sir!” shouted our man to the skipper.
“Aye, aye,” said Cap’n Joe, eagerly. “And when we tack back again we’re going to cross ahead of the Seamew’s bow—and the race will be over.”
He said it with enormous satisfaction. He believed it, too.
“Why will the race be over, Clint?” asked Phillis, who stood beside me at the moment. “I looked at the chart. We’re a long way yet from Baltimore. We are not in sight of the opening into Chesapeake Bay.”
“There are tugs waiting up there in the roads for us,” I told her. “You’ll soon see their smoke. They will race out for us, as we race in for the port. We shall go up to Baltimore under steam.”
And my statement was scarcely made ere we saw in the far distance the pillars of smoke from the stacks of the ocean-going tugs. The land that had been merely a hazy line, grew more clearly defined, although we were not approaching it directly. Soon I could point out to my little friend the other cape guarding the mouth of the Chesapeake—Cape Charles.
The tugs steamed out to meet us under forced draught. More quickly to get in tow of the tug nearest us, which was coming already hooked up, Cap’n Bowditch put the Gullwing about earlier than he had originally intended. As we tacked, so did the Seamew.
“She’s afraid to give us an inch,” laughed Mr. Barney, taking his place beside the wheel again, and looking up at Mr. Gates.
“It’s nip and tuck,” returned the first mate. Then to the skipper he said: “Shall I make ready to take the tug’s hawser, sir?”
“Right-oh!” declared Captain Bowditch. “And be lively with it. We’re too close to fool away a moment. I hope we get the fastest tug.”
“She’s the Sea Horse, Cap’n!” bawled down the man aloft.
“Smart tug, she is,” agreed the skipper.
“And I believe that’s the Comet makin’ to meet the Seamew.”
“Both Norfolk Tug Company’s craft—and good ones. I wouldn’t give a dollar bonus either way on ’em, would you, Mr. Gates?”
“They’re just as near alike as the Seamew and the Gullwing are alike,” agreed the mate, and went forward.
We were standing in now directly for the channel. The Seamew was headed likewise. We were bound to pass close to our sister ship—so close that, as the moments slipped past, I began to feel some disturbance of mind.
Heaven knows the ocean was broad enough; but the two skippers were obstinate and eager. One would not be likely to want to give way to the other. And moment after moment the two great ships, their canvas filled and the white water split in great waves from their prows, rushed closer and closer together.