Chapter XII

The morning dawned bright and clear. What little wind there was blew steadily from the northwest, and there was not the least reason to suppose that it would change during the day. The boys breakfasted on cold boiled beef, sitting on the deck near the wheel, so that they could breakfast together. It was not a very delightful breakfast, but it was better than raw cod-fish, and a great deal better than no breakfast at all.

As the foretopsail and spanker were enough to give steerage-way to the brig, Charley ordered the foresail to be hauled up and the jib taken in immediately after breakfast. He told his comrades that all hope of getting the vessel into port must now be abandoned, and that they must keep the brig from drifting any further to the southward than could be helped.

"Those sails ought to be furled," said Charley, as he came in from furling the jib, "but I can't roll them up alone. Who will come aloft with me and furl the main-top-gallant-sail?"

Joe was at the wheel, and both Harry and Tom at once volunteered to help their Captain. They found it easy enough to climb the rigging—and indeed Harry had already been up to the maintop—but when they came to lie out on the top-gallant-yard, they found it a very ticklish task. The foot-rope had an unpleasant way of sagging under their weight, and seemed to them to afford a very insecure foot-hold. At first they could do little except hang on to the yard, but presently their nervousness wore off, and they found themselves rolling up the sail and passing the gaskets, under Charley's direction, with a confidence that surprised them. "When you once get used to it," said Charley, "you will find that going aloft isn't half so risky as climbing trees. Here you always have a rope to hang on to, and you can be sure that it won't break, but when you are up in a tall tree you never can tell when a branch is going to break and let you down, or when your feet will slip on the bark."

After the maintop-gallant-sail was furled, the boys furled the foretop-gallant-sail with much more ease, and descended to the deck quite proud of their exploit. The foresail was too heavy for them to handle, so the buntlines and leech-lines were hauled as taut as possible, and the sail was left to hang in the brails. The brig was now under her foretopsail and spanker, and steered so easily that Joe had little hard work to do. The sea had become so smooth that not even a particle of spray sprinkled the low deck of the vessel, and the boys began to find the time hang rather heavily on their hands as they watched for some friendly sail to come and rescue them.

"I wonder where the Ghost is," said Harry.

"Sunk by this time," replied Tom. "You know how she was leaking, and with no one to pump her out, she wouldn't keep afloat twenty-four hours."

"I meant to stop that leak," remarked Charley. "I think I know about where it was, and when the sea went down we could probably have got at it. What a nice boat she was!"

"How we shall hate to tell Uncle John that we've lost her!" Harry exclaimed. "I know she cost him a good deal, and it's pretty hard that he should lose all the money he has put into her."

"We can't ask him to buy any more boats for us," said Tom. "I was expecting that we could sell the Ghost for money enough to get us all canoes, but now we'll have to give the canoe plan up."

"The fact is," said Joe, "this hasn't been the most successful cruise in the world. We've been out only about ten days, and now we're expecting to be taken home like shipwrecked sailors, with the loss of everything but our clothes."

"If we only get back safe, we needn't worry about anything," replied Tom. "Suppose no vessel comes to help us! The brig will sink some of these days, and I'm thinking that it won't be very long before she makes up her mind to try it."

"Then we can make a raft," said Charley, cheerfully, "and cruise on that until we are picked up. I am almost willing to promise you that we are taken off this brig sometime today. By-the-bye, did I tell you that I've found out what her name is?"

"How did you find it out?" asked Harry. "You know it is washed off the stern so that we couldn't make it out."

"Why," Charley replied, "I looked in the forecastle bell yesterday afternoon, and there it was, the Hirondelle, of Bordeaux. I forgot to tell you of it at the time. How she comes to be here with a load of timber is something I can't make out."

"There's a sail!" exclaimed Harry.

"Where?" cried Charley.

"'Way over on our starboard quarter. I can just see her."

Charley immediately ran aloft and looked anxiously at the distant stranger. He came down and reported that she was apparently a schooner, and seemed to be steering directly toward the brig.

"Do you think they see us?" asked Tom.

"They see our spars, but they can't see our signal of distress, and unless they do see it they won't pay any attention to us. However, they'll be up with us in the course of two or three hours, unless the schooner changes her course, which she probably won't do."

The boys watched the schooner with the utmost interest for a long time, but she seemed to them hardly to move. Joe got tired of watching, and exclaimed, "There's no use in looking at her; a watched schooner never boils."

"How could a schooner boil?" inquired matter-of-fact Tom.

"I have something to amuse you, boys," interrupted Charley. "Let's try to get the brig before the wind, and run down to the schooner. Come forward with me, and we'll hoist the head-sails. Tom, you and Harry lower the spanker while I go and loose the sails."

Charley went forward and loosed the jib and flying-jib, and by the time this was done, Harry and Tom had succeeded in taking in the spanker, and had come to help him. When the jib and flying-jib were set, Charley ordered Joe to put the helm hard up. As the brig slowly fell off, he slacked the lee forebrace and foretopsail-brace, and then with Harry and Tom hauled in the weather-braces, until the unassisted strength of the three boys could no longer stir the heavy yards. Then, letting go the head-sheets, they hurried aft and hoisted the spanker. By this time the brig had swung nearly around, and by taking the braces to the capstan the yards were finally braced up, and the wind brought on the port beam. The Hirondelle was no longer running away from the schooner, and it was evident that the crew of the latter would understand that the brig wanted to meet them. As the wind was now fair, Charley proceeded to get the foretop-gallant-sail on her, and kept his crew so busy that they were surprised to find, when their work was over, that the schooner was only about a mile distant.

"HURRAH! THERE'S THE 'GHOST'!"

"Hurrah! There's the Ghost!" Harry suddenly cried. "The schooner is towing her."

Sure enough, the little Ghost was there, in the wake of the schooner. There could be no mistake about it, for when she pitched, the boys could distinctly see the canvas cabin.

Charley ran forward and let go the top-gallant and topsail halyards, and slacked the top-gallant sheets so that the sail flapped uselessly in the light air. The schooner, which was now close by, hove to, and after some delay her boat was launched, and the boat's crew of four men were soon on the deck of the brig.

"What in all creation are you boys doing aboard this brig?" asked the big good-humored mate of the schooner.

"We were blown out to sea in that sail-boat that you are towing," answered Charley, "and we boarded the brig; and while we were trying to get sail on her the Ghost got adrift."

"Trying to get sail on her, were you? Did you boys set that there topsail?"

"We did."

"And where on earth were you trying to get to?"

Charley told the mate the whole story—how they had tried to sail the brig into New York, and how the head-wind had baffled them. "Now," said he, "if you'll take us and the Ghost to Sandy Hook, we'll be only too glad to abandon the brig, for we can never get her into port with this wind."

"Should rayther think you couldn't. Why, you might as well try to work Trinity Church to windward with a leg-of-mutton sail rigged on to the steeple. Come aboard the schooner with us, and we'll see what the old man says."

The "old man," or Captain of the schooner, was an honest down East sailor, who first cautiously induced the boys to say that they abandoned all claim to the brig, and then told them that he would carry them to New York, and give them back their sail-boat. He left the mate and two men on board the Hirondelle, giving them the schooner's small-boat, and then steered for Sandy Hook.

The boys had a pleasant sail in the schooner. She was bound from Boston to Philadelphia, but with the hope of saving the brig, the Captain had decided to go to New York, and to send a steam-tug back to tow the brig in. This brought the wind directly ahead, but the schooner, making long tacks, worked to windward so beautifully that by noon the next day she was up to the light-ship. There a steam-tug was met, and the Captain of the schooner instantly hired her to go in search of the brig, and to tow her into port.

While the headway of the schooner was checked to enable the Captain to bargain with the Captain of the steamer, the boys shook hands with everybody, and climbed down into the Ghost. When the latter was picked up by the schooner she was pumped out, and the leak was stopped. Nothing was missing from her cabin, and the boys lost no time in setting the jib and mainsail, or rather what could be set of the latter without the gaff.

Even with her crippled mainsail, the Ghost kept ahead of the schooner for a long while, and the latter did not overtake her until she was half way from Sandy Hook to the Narrows. Now that home was so near, and the dangers of the cruise were over, the boys regretted that they had not cut loose from the schooner when she was within sight of Fire Island inlet. They could have entered the Great South Bay through the inlet, and carried out their plan of crossing from Shinnecock Bay to Peconic Bay.

"It is a shame," said Harry, "to go home when nobody is expecting us. We told them we should be gone for at least four weeks."

"What is a greater shame, if you look at it in that way, is our giving up the brig to the schooner's people," remarked Charley.

"Why, what else could we do?" asked Tom. "You said yourself that we couldn't work the brig in, and that we must abandon her."

"Why couldn't we have hired the captain to send us a steam-tug? We could have staid on board the brig just as well as the mate and the two men, and if the steam-tug tows them in, why couldn't we have been towed in?"

"I never thought of that," exclaimed Tom.

"Nor I," said Harry and Joe, both together.

"Well, I did think of it," resumed Charley, "and if I'd been alone on the brig, I would have done it. But then Uncle John expected me to take care of the Ghost and her crew, and I wasn't instructed to run any risk for the sake of bringing abandoned vessels into port. We did right to give up the brig, but at the same time we did lose a fair chance of making a good big sum of money."

"Why shouldn't we keep right on through Hell Gate into the Sound, and cruise round that way to Canoe Place, and come back through the South Bays?" said Harry. "We can do it easily enough in four weeks."

"And not go home at all?" asked Tom.

"Not till we get back from the cruise. I'm ready to do it."

"So am I," said Joe. "I've been dry for two days, and I begin to feel really uncomfortable. Let's go on, and get wet some more."

"I can go just as well as not," said Charley. "I've nothing else to do."

"And I'd like nothing better," added Tom.

"Then we'll stop somewhere in the city and lay in provisions, and then go through Hell Gate as soon as the tide will let us," said Harry.

"Why not stop a day or two, and see Uncle John, and talk to him about a canoe cruise?" suggested Charley. "Perhaps we could sell the Ghost, and get canoes, and have our canoe cruise this summer instead of next year."

"That's what we ought to do," said Tom. "We would enjoy the change from a sail-boat to a canoe more just now than we ever will again."

"And I don't think it would be quite right to start on what would really be a new cruise without seeing Uncle John," said Charley. "We mustn't do it. We'll go home, and if we can manage to get canoes, we'll have a canoe cruise, and if we can't, why, we'll sail up the Sound, provided you can all get permission to go."

So it was settled that the Ghost should head for Harlem, and that her crew should go home for a day or two. Everybody was satisfied with this decision, and in the hope of starting on a canoe cruise, Tom, Harry, and Joe busied themselves in discussing different routes. Before they had finally settled where they would cruise, Charley ran the boat into the dock at Harlem, and the cruise of the Ghost was ended.

THE END.