With splintering of wood and clanging of metal, the iron bar was
wrenched from its deck-fastenings and began to fly to and fro across the
deck at the end of its tether, like a giant's slung-shot. It circled, it
spun, it flung itself afar and returned in unexpected arcs.
Men fled from the area which this terror dominated.
The boom swung until it banged the mizzen shrouds to port, and then came
swooping back across the deck, to slam against the starboard shrouds.
The clanging, tethered missile it bore on its end seemed to be searching
for a victim. When the boom met the starboard shrouds in its headlong
rush, the schooner shivered.
"Free that halyard and douse the peak!" roared the first mate.
A sailor started, ducking low, but he ran back when the boom came across
the deck with such a vicious swing that the iron bar fairly screamed
through the air.
"Gawd-a-mighty! She'll bang the mast out of her!" clamored Captain
Downs. "Get some men to those halyards, Mr. Dodge! Catch that boom!"
The mate ran and kicked at a sailor, shouting profane orders. He seized
the fellow and thrust him toward the pins where the halyards were
belayed. But at that instant the rushing boom came hurtling overhead
with its slung-shot, and the iron banged the rail almost exactly where
the fouled line was secured. The mate and the sailor fell flat on their
faces and crawled back from the zone of danger.
"Get some rope and noose that boom! Lassoo it!" commanded the master,
touching up his orders with some lurid sea oaths.
But the men who stepped forward did so timidly and slowly, and dodged
back when the boom threatened. The flying bar was a terrible weapon. Now
it swung in toward the mast--now swept in wider radius. Just where it
would next sweep the deck between the masts depended on the vagary of
wave and wind. It was perfectly apparent that anybody who got in its
path would meet death as instantly as a fly under a housewife's spanker.
Life is sweet, even if a man is black and is toiling for a dollar-a-day
wage.
And even if a man is a mate, at a higher wage and with more
responsibility, he is inclined to think of himself before he figures on
saving a mast and gear for a schooner's owners.
"What kind of a gor-rammed crew have I got aboard here?" shrieked the
master.
"About the kind that all wind-jammers carry these days," said a voice at
his elbow.