On the following Thursday afternoon there was a half-holiday, and Jack Symonds found himself suddenly without occupation. He had intended to go for a ramble into the bush behind the college, but at the last moment his proposed companion had been unable to accompany him. He was therefore at a loose end, but it was not in him to remain idle for long.
"What are you going to do with your useless self?" he demanded of Billy jocularly.
"Didn't you know? Some of us are going for a sail on the bay."
"Are you? What ripping luck! Any room for a bad sailor who doesn't know a mainbrace from a companion hatchway?"
"I think we can find room," said Billy. "Don't you think so, Patchie?"
"I do, comrade. That is, provided he doesn't get his feet in the scuppers or start dancing a jig on the keel."
"Good-oh!" said Jack. "Are you coming now? Yes? Half a mo', till I run down into the Gym. and change. I'll meet you at the landing stage."
A spanking breeze was blowing as the little party of five put off from the jetty and slid out carefully into the blue expanse of the bay. The steering and management of the little craft, which was merely an undecked skiff, was undertaken by Billy Faraday. The boat was fitted with a single balance lug sail, but it was fairly large, and soon they were running before the wind at a smart clip.
"By Jingo!" said Jack, smacking Patchie upon the back, "this is exhilarating, isn't it?"
"Yes, comrade, it's not bad. When we get a little farther out you may paddle your feet in the water," said Patch, kindly. "This, my lad, is the sea, the abode of the finny tribe—it is mainly composed of water, but there is a proportion of salt added, as you will observe if you drink about a quart of it."
"Get out," laughed Jack. "You're kidding me—aren't you? You're taking advantage of my youth and ignorance. And is it all wet?"
"Every drop," Patch assured him solemnly. "Think of it—all that immense mass, and not a dry spot anywhere throughout it. Doesn't the thought stagger you?"
"Now you put it in that way, it does," agreed Jack. "Beginning to blow a bit, isn't it?"
"Yes, comrade. If it keeps on blowing like this you'll have to hold on to your hat."
The playful wind caught Patch's words and tossed them away.
"You what?" yelled Jack.
"Your hat, comrade. You know what a hat is, don't you?"
"Yes—a thing the chap passes round after the cornet solo. I know. A cousin of mine had one once."
Jack's spirits, in fact, were becoming more and more volatile; this lively fooling only served to render him more buoyant than ever.
He now jumped up, making the boat rock perilously, and drawing a howl of protest from his fellow-mariners. Throwing out an arm he began to issue orders in traditional sea-dog style.
"Now then, my hearties!" he bellowed. "Lay on there, you pack of land-lubbers! Hoist the keel to the capstan-head—throw the main deck overboard! Step lively, now!"
"Oh, my only aunt!" groaned Patch, who felt distinctly unsafe in his position right underneath the straddling, swaying figure of Symonds. "You burbling lunatic—!"
"Belay there!" sang out Jack, unheeding. "Reel in the scuppers—make fast the poop!"
"Sit down, you're rocking the boat!" implored Patch in anguished accents.
"Unship the propeller-shaft—get a head of steam in the bowsprit!" came the amazing orders.
"Sit down!" wailed Patch. "You colossal idiot, sit—ouch! Gerroff!"
Jack had obeyed the order—quite involuntarily, as it happened. The bows of the boat had encountered a short, choppy sea, and Jack was sent flying into Patch's lap as a result.
"Wow!" gasped the inventor. "You're crushing—life out of—gerrup! Help!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" gurgled the three unfeeling spectators.
When the slight disturbance thus occasioned had quietened somewhat, the amateur sailors had leisure to observe that the sea had risen—had, in fact, developed a distinct chop. The breeze, also, had become appreciably harder.
"Jiminy, what do you call this?" asked Jack, as a lash of spray cut inboard, driven by the wind. "A giddy old gale, that's what it is!"
"Gale?" asked Patch superbly. "When you've been to sea as long as I have, my lad, you'll know better than to call a bit of a blow like this a gale."
"Well," sneered Jack, poking him in the ribs, "what's your name for it, then, my good admiral?"
"We sailors call this a stiff calm," said Patch, and the others yelled with laughter. "Yes, that's all it is to the man who knows the sea. You should just see a real gale, my boy! Why, I remember that in the Bay of Biscay I—"
He waved an arm grandly to emphasize the brilliant lie that he was evolving, but, at that moment, to a lurch of the boat, he slipped from his seat into the bottom-boards, where he lay floundering like a landed fish, in two or three inches of dirty water.
"Dear me!" said Jack, bending over him with a look of kindly concern. "Is that what you did in the Bay of Biscay? Poor fellow, what a time you must have gone through! And alive to tell the tale—alive and kicking," he added, as Patch's wildly-waving legs described in the air most of the problems of Euclid, together with some that Euclid never thought of.
"Ump! Ur!" said Patch, regaining his equilibrium with an effort.
"Don't say you've finished!" said Jack, clasping his hands in mock dismay. "You will do it again, won't you? I just loved that part where you stood on one ear—I thought that so clever!"
"It was quite unintentional," said Patch, wringing the water out of his trousers.
"You are too modest!" returned the irrepressible Jack. "Why, do you know how long it'd take me to learn all that? The best part of a year, and even then I'd have to—"
Amid the mocking laughter of Septimus Patch and the others, Jack found himself in the same plight as the unfortunate inventor had just quitted. A lift and twist of the boat upon a wave-crest, a slippery seat canted at an angle, had been the elements of his downfall. He lay upon his back, struggling.
"Well, comrade," grinned Patch, "that's very good for an amateur!" He stood over Jack's prostrate form, and began to recite. "Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling! The darling of his crew! No more he'll hear—"
At this moment the sail indulged in that whimsical operation termed by sailors a "gybe all standing"—it wriggled violently from side to side, and the boom struck Patch on the head as he endeavoured to dodge it.
"Help!" he howled, pitching head-first into Jack's lap as the latter sat at the tiller. "The giddy thing's run amok, or something—it just jumped at me and thumped me on the head. I tell you—"
"Let's hope you haven't hurt it," said Jack anxiously. "You ought to be careful with a head like yours—it's liable to break something! Don't sling it about in that wild way; you'll do some damage with it one of these days, and then you'll be sorry you didn't listen to the wise words of your uncle Jack."
"My boy," said Patch, "I begin to have a horrible suspicion of you. I think you've been trying to be funny! I thought you'd been looking queer all this trip—"
"Beloved One," Jack told him, "I haven't got to try to be funny. It comes sort of natural."
"Quite so, comrade, quite so. It's your face that does it. You happen to have been born with one of those faces that cause horrible merriment. A face that provokes ribald laughter. A face that—"
"I can't help my face," said Jack sorrowfully. "It is cruel of you to mention it, but I must tell the truth. Listen. When I was a child a careless servant let a tree fall on me and—"
"Ha, ha, ha!" roared the others, in chorus, but Billy's voice cut in with:
"Drop fooling, you chaps. We ran into a bit of a squall just then, and I don't think we'll go any farther. A bit of a sea working up. Wind against us. We'd better slip back while our luck's in."
Accordingly the boat was worked around, and plugged into the choppy sea that stretched between the vessel and the college jetty.
A good four miles of water had to be traversed before they would arrive at their destination, and Billy, although he did not mention his qualms to his companions, felt more than a trifle nervous about the return journey.
The aspect of the sea had changed wonderfully since they had set out on their trip. Banks of cloud piled angrily up in the south, grey and threatening; and the wind was now undeniably vigorous. Moreover, the sea had risen; the waves were swift and vicious, jumping at the boat in just that manner that the expert boatman dislikes. Added to that was the fact that the boat was small and heavily-laden.
"Jiminy," said Jack, "we're in for a blow on the way back." As he spoke the wind whipped the crest off a wave ahead of them and sheeted it over the occupants of the boat. The sail jumped and the mast groaned, and as Billy tacked expertly the boat heeled over dangerously, and unquestionably, without the drop-keel, the whole concern would have capsized.
Gust after gust now smote the vessel, and it required all of Billy's admirable coolness and splendid skill to keep them on their course.
"I don't like the look of the sky," said Jack suddenly to his friend.
"Neither do I, old man," returned Billy seriously. "It's getting very dark, and there's rain in those clouds, or I'm no judge."
Presently the hands were at work bailing out the water, for, despite all of Billy's management, some seas were shipped, and the boat was hardly of the kind to afford to become much flooded. And, most dismaying sign of all, the going became worse as time went on. Beyond question, the gale was growing.
The minatory rumbling of thunder now became audible, and the sky was rapidly overcast. In the consequent gloom, the boys lost sight of the far shore, which had previously been visible as a dark mass.
Crash! A tremendous peal of thunder seemed to split the heavens; it was directly overhead, which made it appear that the fury of the coming storm was directed particularly against the temeritous yachtsmen. Instantly down came the rain, sweeping over the sea in an enormous, sustained shower. The boys were wet through in an instant; and when, in a furious gust, the sail flapped against the mast, it was in wet folds.
Blinding as a close veil, the rain effectually sheeted out any sign of land whatever, and Billy Faraday felt a momentary qualm. He thought that it was now impossible to steer for shore, and he knew full well that there were only one or two places in the bay where a decent landing was possible.
"Look here," he shouted, above the roaring of the rain and the continuous smashing of waves on the bows. "Look here, you chaps—I think we'd better cut before the wind, and miss call-over. I'm not in love with our chances of pulling through this welter."
"But where will you make for?"
"Dog-face," replied Billy. Dog-face was the name of a small island in Deepwater Bay, and its name was the result of a fanciful resemblance of the place, on certain days, to the face of a bulldog. It was out of bounds, and rarely visited by the boys, who had to get special permits to do so. However, there were no attractions on Dog-face, and the permits were seldom called for.
"Dog-face," repeated Billy Faraday, "that's our chance! We're not going to barge into the rocks on the other side of the bay, by jingo! But Dog-face sports a bit of a beach, and I think I can make it...."
His companions nodded in silent agreement. After all, Billy knew best, and the boat was shipping more and more water as she went forward. The captain of the little craft, therefore, put her about with the skill of a veteran, and they were instantly running before the wind with the utmost speed and momentum.
"Gee!" gasped Jack. "If we miss Dog-face and slam into the rocks at this rate, then we'll just about go up in smoke!"
"Keep your eyes skinned, then!" said Billy between his teeth. "Hop down the stern, you chaps—we don't want to run our nose under water."
They tore through the boiling sea at a tremendous pace. Huge waves pursued them, but never seemed to catch up. The sail was as tight as a drum; a wave of foam curled away from the bows of the boat.
"If this goes on," said Billy, all at once, casting a glance behind him, "we'll have to lower sail. Wonder it doesn't pull the stick out of the boat!"
In a few minutes he cast an anxious look ahead of him and called on his companions to say whether they discerned any signs of the tiny island. It was a small place, and in the rain and the gloom they might easily run past it. But then Patch gave a yell, and pointed.
"There it is, right ahead!" he cried.
"Good business!" said Billy Faraday. "We're safe!"
As if in mockery of his words, a colossal gust pounced on the boat and shook it as a terrier shakes a rat—and the thing Billy had feared came to pass. With a crack like a pistol-shot the mast snapped off short, and the sail and cords, in a tangled mass, collapsed over the bows.
Jack Symonds, impulsive as ever, leaped up to secure the wreckage; but the obstruction had brought the boat side on to the waves. That and his sudden movement were too much for the stability of the frail craft. As a following gust shrieked overhead the whole thing canted terribly over—and in a moment turned turtle.