Very jealous of his craft’s reputation was Jacky’s George; a hint of defiance from another boat and he was after the challenger instanter, even though it took him out of his course. Many a good spin did Ortho get coming in from the Carn Base Wolf and other outer fishing grounds, backed against the weather-side with the Baragwanath boys, living ballast, while the gig, trembling from end to end, went leaping and swooping over the blue and white hillocks on the trail of an ambitious Penberth or Porgwarra man. Sheets and weather stays humming in the blast, taut and vibrant as guitar strings; sails rigid as though carved from wood, lee gunnel all but dipping under; dollops of spray bursting aboard over the weather bow—tense work, culminating in exultation as they crept up on the chase, drew to her quarter, came broad abeam and—with derisive cheers—passed her. Speed was a mania with the cock-robin; he was in perpetual danger of sailing the _Game Cock_ under; on one occasion he very nearly did.
They were tearing, close-hauled, through the Runnelstone Passage, after an impudent Mouseholeman, when a cross sea suddenly rose out of nowhere and popped aboard over the low lee gunnel. In a second the boat was full of water; only her gunnels and thwarts were visible. It seemed to Ortho that he was standing up to his knees in the sea.
His eldest son jammed the helm hard down, but the boat wouldn’t answer. The way was off her; she lay as dead as a log.
“Leggo sheets!” shouted the father. “Aft all hands!”
Ortho tumbled aft with the Baragwanath boys and watched Jacky’s George in a stupor of fright. The little man could not be said to move; he flickered, grabbed up an oar, wrenched the boat’s head round, broke the crest of an oncoming wave by launching the oar blade at it and took the remainder in his back.
“Heave the ballast out an’ bale,” he yelled gleefully, sitting in the bows, forming a living bulwark against the waves. “Bale till your backs break, my jollies.”
They bailed like furies, baled with the first things to hand, line tubs, caps, boots, anything, in the meanwhile drifting rapidly towards the towering cliffs of Tol-pedn-Penwith. The crash of the breakers on the ledges struck terror through Ortho. They sounded like a host of ravenous great beasts roaring for their prey—him. If the boat did not settle under them they would be dashed to pieces on those rocks; death was inevitable one way or the other. He remembered the Portuguese seamen washed in from the Twelve Apostles without heads. He would be like that in a few minutes—no head—ugh!