Mayo looked aft and saw Alma Marston clinging to the spike-rack of the
spanker mast. The coach-house lantern shone upon her white face.
"Go below!" repeated the master.
She shook her head.
"This is no place for a woman."
"The vessel is going to sink!" she quavered.
"The schooner is all right. You go below!"
How bitter her fear was Mayo could not determine. But even at his
distance he could see stubborn resolution on her countenance.
"If I've got to die, I'll not die down there in a box," she cried. "I'm
going to stay right here."
Captain Downs swore and turned his back on her. Apparently he did not
care to come to a real clinch with this feminine mutineer.
The great spar crashed out to the extent of its arc, and the sail
volleyed with it, ballooning under the weight of the wind. The
reef-points were no longer within Mayo's reach. He ran along the boom,
arms outspread to steady himself, and was half-way to its end before the
telltale surge under him gave warning. Then he fell upon the huge stick,
rolled under it, and shoved arms and legs under the foot of the sail.
Barely had he clutched the spar in fierce embrace before it began its
return journey. It was a dizzy sweep across the deck, a breath-taking
plunge.
When the spar collided with the stays he felt as if arms and legs would
be wrenched from his body. He did not venture to move or to relax his
hold. He clung with all his strength, and nerved himself for the return
journey. He had watched carefully, and knew something of the vagaries
of the giant flail. When it was flung to port the wind helped to hold
it there until the resistless surge of the schooner sent it flying wild
once more. He knew that no mere flesh and blood could endure many
of those collisions with the stays. He resolved to act on the next
oscillation to port, in order that his strength might not be gone.
"See that the cable runs free!" he screamed as he felt the stick lift
for its swoop.
He swung himself upward over the spar the moment it struck, and the
momentum helped him. He ran again, steadying himself like a tight-wire
acrobat. He snatched the noose from his shoulders, slipped it over
the end of the boom, and yelled an order, with all the strength of his
lungs: "Pull her taut!"
At that instant the boom started to swing again.