Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

  CHAPTER X

  _In Which the Cook Smells Smoke, and the "First Venture" In a Gale of Wind Off the Chunks, Comes Into Still Graver Peril, Which Billy Topsail Discovers_

  Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay got the _First Venture_ under way at dawn ofthe next day. It was blowing a stiff breeze. A fine, fresh wind wasromping fair to the northwest, where, far off, Ruddy Cove lay and Mrs.Skipper William waited.

  "I 'low," Skipper Bill mused, as the schooner slipped through thenarrows, "that that there insurance wouldn't o' done much harmanyhow."

  There was an abrupt change of weather. It came without warning; andthere was no hint of apology to the skipper of the _First Venture_.When the schooner was still to the s'uth'ard of the dangerous Chunks,but approaching them, she was beating laboriously into a violent andcapricious head wind. Bill o' Burnt Bay, giving heed to SirArchibald's injunction, kept her well off the group of barren islands.They were mere rocks, scattered widely. Some of them showed theirforbidding heads to passing craft; others were submerged, as thoughlying in wait. It would be well to sight them, he knew, that he mightbetter lay his course; but he was bound that no lurking rock should"pick up" his ship.

  "Somehow or other," he thought, "I wisht I _had_ took out that thereinsurance."

  At dusk it began to snow. What with this thick, blinding cloud drivingpast, shrouding the face of the sea, and what with the tumultuouswaves breaking over her, and what with the roaring gale drowning herlee rail, the _First Venture_ was having a rough time of it. SkipperBill, with his hands on the wheel, had the very satisfactoryimpression, for which he is not to be blamed, that he was "a man." Butwhen, at last, the _First Venture_ began to howl for mercy in nouncertain way, he did not hesitate to waive the wild joy of "driving"for the satisfaction of keeping his spars in the sockets.

  "Better call the hands, Tom!" he shouted to the first hand. "We'llreef her."

  Tom put his head into the forecastle. The fire in the little roundstove was roaring lustily; and the swinging lamp filled the narrowplace with warm light.

  "Out with you, lads!" Tom cried. "All hands on deck t' reef themains'l!"

  Up they tumbled; and up tumbled Archie Armstrong, and up tumbledJimmie Grimm, and up tumbled Billy Topsail.

  "Blowin' some," thought Archie. "Great sailin' breeze. What's hereefin' for?"

  The great sail was obstinate. Ease the schooner as Skipper Bill would,it was still hard for his crew of two men, three lads and a cook tograsp and confine the canvas. Meantime, the schooner lurched along,tossing her head, digging her nose into the frothy waves. A cask onthe after deck broke its lashings, pursued a mad and devastatingcareer fore and aft, and at last went spinning into the sea. SkipperBill devoutly hoped that nothing else would get loose above or below.He cast an apprehensive glance into the darkening cloud of snow ahead.There was no promise to be descried. And to leeward the first islandsof the Chunks, which had been sighted an hour ago, had disappeared inthe night.

  "Lively with that mains'l, lads!" Skipper Bill shouted, lifting hisvoice above the wind. "We'll reef the fores'l!"

  The crew had been intent upon the task in hand. Not a man had yetsmelled smoke. And they continued to wrestle with the obstinate sail,each wishing, heartily enough, to get the dirty-weather job well done,and to return to the comfort of the forecastle. It was the cook whofirst paused to sniff--to sniff again--and to fancy he smelled smoke.But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and heforgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce thedisordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and themainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentousintervals, during which the fate of the _First Venture_ wasdetermined.

  "All stowed, sir!" Archie Armstrong shouted to the skipper.

  "Get at that fores'l, then!" was the order.

  With the customary, "Ay, ay, sir!" shouted cheerily, in the manner ofgood men and willing lads, the crew ran forward.

  Skipper Bill remembers that the cook tripped and went sprawling intothe lee scupper; and that he scrambled out of the water with alaugh.

  It was the last laugh aboard the _First Venture_; for the condition ofthe schooner was then instantly discovered.

  "Fire!" screamed Billy Topsail.

  The _First Venture_ was all ablaze forward.