CHAPTER VII.

A RACE FOR LIFE.

'HOLD the sheet, Con,' ordered Hender Gaverock, 'and throw yourself to wind'ard as ballast. Whatever you do, but one turn round the cleet. Many a score of boats have been lost by a double turn.'

The wind rose to a hurricane, the waves piled themselves up, and their foaming crests broke against each other. The day was declining, but the dense clouds made it dark before its time. All colour was gone out of the sea.

Now the little Mermaid' proved how good a vessel she was; she skimmed the waves like a seabird, she danced on their crests like the mermaid that she was. A grim smile lighted the face of old Gaverock. He was proud of his boat, and happy to be able to prove her powers. She was scantily provided with ballast for such a gale-only with Constantine laden with the stone jars.

'Have the bottles with you, lad. Take them over from side to side,' said his father. We must keep on all sail we can.'

For some time he saw no more of the mysterious boat, but as he tacked he again obtained a glimpse of her; she also, like the 'Mermaid,' was standing out to sea. The little cutter leaned over with the force of the wind, the water rushed up before her bows and at times swept her deck.

For a moment the sunlight flared out a parting ray from the west, and, as the 'Mermaid' swung up a great billow, the three men saw, to port, the strange boat, as if made of red-hot metal, glowing, glaring, the sail a sheet of flame, the men on board as men of fire.

This was only for a moment. Then the black cloud descended on the sea, and night fell; but still for a while in the west a bloody streak marked the division between sea and sky. Rain began to fall heavily, driving before the wind, drops that struck as hard as hail; it fell so thick that it cut off all sight of the land and of the horizon.

The sea rose higher. The gale lashed at the sea, like a savage groom lashing a horse into a frenzy of fear and fury. The wind shrieked in the rigging, the water hissed and gulped about the boat, the whole air was full of roar, in which, now and again, came the thunder and crash of a plunging billow distinct from

the general noise. Already had they been swept by two or three seas, and were drenched to the skin. The water foamed over old Tregellas, who sat forward, and, pouring over the deck, rushed out behind over the Squire. The other boat was near them—so near that they could have hailed one another had they been so minded. Another reef ought to have been taken in, but Gaverock did not like to confess himself beaten in a race-which was a race for life.

Presently, however, when a furious blast sent them over so that the water wet half the sail, he was constrained to take in the second reef, and then, next time he caught sight of the phantom boat, he saw that those on board her had done the same.

'Rum, Con! rum!' shouted Gaverock, and passed the tin cup to his son, who removed the cork from one of the jars, poured out with shaking hand, and passed a jorum to his father, then drank himself, and finally handed the can to Tregellas. The spirit was needed; the three men were numb with cold, and wet to the bone.

When the rushing rain held up, the light on Trevose Head was visible; but Gaverock saw that it was now impossible for him to make Sandymouth that night. The wind was on shore, and he must run out to sea, and keep well out till break of day. This could only be done by constant tacking. He did not tell Constantine or David. There was no need for him to do so; both knew it as well as he. Unless he could work out to open sea, the wind would carry him ashore between the horns of Hartland and Trevose. If he could manage to run under Lundy, he could lie there all night, ready for return next day. Fortunately the gale was not from the north-west, nor was it due west, but with a point or two to the south-west.

The phosphorescent light on the black billows seemed to the Squire to break into lambent flame about the mysterious boat that shot by out of darkness and into darkness again at intervals. By this light he thought he could distinguish the men on board, with their sou'-westers on their heads; but as they were all to windward, and the boat keeled over steeply, he could see no faces. Their backs were towards him, but he fancied that he saw the man at the helm with a stake protruding from his back. That may have been fancy only. In the uncertain light, with the irregular motion of the boats, with glimpses caught casually between boiling seas, in the excited, strained condition of his mind, Gaverock was liable to be deceived.

Not for a moment did the old man's heart fail him. His

spirits rose to the occasion. He had expressed a wish to race Featherstone's cutter. Featherstone had taken him at his word: the phantom ship was there, come at his challenge, at one moment fiery, as if the dead man and his boat had sprung to the challenge from the flames of Tartarus, black for the most part, as though drawn from the blackest abyss of hell.

Presently he saw a mighty wall of water, as of ink, rolling on, with the blear light of the squally western sky behind it, showing its ragged, tossing, threatening crown, sharply cut against the light. Gaverock prepared to meet it, with firm grasp of the helm and set teeth. For a moment it seemed as though the 'Mermaid' were about to cleave it-only for a moment, and then she swung up, all her planks straining, as making a desperate effort; then a rush of whirling foam swept the deck and streamed out of the lee scuppers, as the boat lay over almost on her side. For a moment she staggered, as though hesitating what to do next, righted herself, and then went headlong down into the seatrough, as though diving like a cormorant after a fish; and the walls of black water stood about her, enclosing her as the waves of the Red Sea above the chariots of Pharaoh.

Whilst this happened, Gaverock fancied he heard a cry from the phantom boat, which he could not see, hidden behind the liquid mounds. Was it a cry of mockery? or was it a threat? He waited till the 'Mermaid' had mounted a roller, and then he replied with a roar of defiance.

It was no longer possible to carry so much sail, and he reefed again--but with reluctance. The fury of the storm seemed to grow. He dared not reef further, lest he should lose all command over the boat.

The spray cut and cross-cut the old Squire's face, as though he were being lashed with a horse-whip. The water poured off his shaggy eyebrows, blinding him. He dared not let go his hold of the tiller even with one hand to wipe his face, and he bent his head, and smeared the brine and rain away on his sleeve.

The rum was called for, and passed frequently. Constantine suffered more than his father. His hands were numb and shook with cold. He was less accustomed to exposure than Hender Gaverock and David Tregellas. For a twelvemonth, at least, he had not been to sea. He was angry and bitter at heart with his father for exposing him to discomfort and danger. He firmly resolved never to go out with the old man again. It would be better

for him to keep away altogether from home, where he was tripped up, mocked, thrust into peril of his life by the inconsiderate, selfwilled old man. Now he was afraid of losing the jars of spirits; afraid of a wave washing them away. Therefore he took off his kerchief and tied the handles together with it. They were already bound together with a piece of cord; that cord he passed behind his back, and the kerchief by this means crossed his breast, holding a jar in place under each arm. Thus, when he passed from port to starboard he carried them with him without inconvenience. That was his first idea in thus attaching them about him, but his second was that they might form a protection for himself in the event of his being washed overboard or of the vessel foundering.

Featherstone's boat-or that which Gaverock took for ithad been unseen for some while. All at once it shot by. Then the old Squire thought he could distinguish the faces of the men on board, lit by the upward flare of the phosphorescent foam. They were white as the faces of the dead. Not a word was spoken as they went by, though the wind lulled for a minute.

The lull was but for a minute. A little way ahead through the darkness loomed on them a mountain of water, with a curling, hoary, spluttering fringe on its head. Gaverock steered direct at the billow, and the sail was eased as much as possible to help the little 'Mermaid' over the watery heap. The wave came on as if on wheels, rushed down on them, shivering into specks of foam in all parts, on its side, as sparks blink out here and there in tinder; with a roar and a blow, it engulfed the vessel and her crew. For a moment the 'Mermaid' lay on her lee side, as about to keel over, then gathered herself together and righted once more. Gaverock heard a cry from the water. Tregellas was overboard.

'God be with you, David!' called the old Squire, and said no more. Help was not to be thought of. Then he imagined that he heard a loud, derisive laugh come to him over the water. He could not see Featherstone's boat, but the sound came-or he fancied it came from the quarter where she must be. Constantine was now alone in the vessel with his father. They had to manage her between them. The old man could not leave the tiller. He held it with iron hand, though numbed with the cold, and with the fingers stiff, without feeling, and contracted. Soon after, again, he caught a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of the phantom boat. The clouds had parted momentarily before the crescent moon, and a ray had touched this mysterious vessel. For

an instant, an instant only, it shone out against the night and storm, ghost-like, as if cut out of white paper and stuck against the soot-black background. Gaverock's pulses smote his ribs like hammers. He was very angry. Featherstone, the Rover, had revisited the world and the scene of his exploits, to have his revenge on the race that had compassed his murder. He was following the 'Mermaid,' to watch and track to death the man and the son of the man who had spiked him. Gaverock looked about for, and with his hand groped after Constantine's gun. A foolish desire for revenge came over him. He would have liked, next time the strange boat appeared, to discharge the gun at the helmsman. But he abandoned the idea almost as soon as it was formed. He dare not desert the tiller, and the gun was doubtless rendered useless by the water.

As the night wore on, Gaverock lost all sense of time. Hour after hour had passed, but the night became no darker; the storm, if it did not abate, grew no worse. Sometimes the clouds aloft were torn apart, and the Squire could look up at the stars and see tattered fragments of vapour being whirled across the gap, which then closed again. At times driving storms of rain came on, and when rain did not fall the air was full of spondrift.

Gaverock guessed pretty well where he was, and he altered somewhat the course of his boat. He was now, according to his reckoning, driving towards the Channel. He could see Lundy light at intervals, far away to leeward, but he had lost sight of that on Trevose Head.

Gaverock's heart did not fail him, but he was less confident than he had been of reaching home alive. He took the peril without much concern; it was what must be expected by those who went out boating in dirty weather. If he were drowned, well --it could not be helped. All must die. But he was vexed that he had not been able to keep his word, and run home to Towan in spite of the gale. Strange to say, the feeling that prevailed in him, and nerved him to battle with the tempest, was rage against Featherstone. He had dared Featherstone to race him, and Featherstone he saw would beat him, and be able to exult over the wreck of the Mermaid.' Not a thought did he give to Towan, to his wife, to Gerans; his one absorbing consideration was-how to disappoint Featherstone, his one consuming ambition was-to come off with life and with an unwrecked boat, not for his own sake, but to defeat and disappoint Featherstone.