Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

I Saw Three Ships Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Book Excerpt: ...masts, flying straight towards them."Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's arm. The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas streamed out from her fore-yards. Yet she came with a rush like a greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs, and closer with every instant. A man, standing on any one of the points she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck."Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock. By crum! if she does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!""What's the use, i' this sea? Besides, her steerin' gear's broke," answered Zeb, without moving his eyes. This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more above high-water mark. As the little schooner came tearing abreast of it, a huge sea caught her broadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry. The men and women on the headland held th...