opped, and I knew enough to understand that we were in some
peril unless a shift of wind came very soon, since the shore was under
our lee now, if by good luck we were not carried straight into the great
river itself. So for an hour or more I watched, and all the time it
seemed that hope grew less, for the sea grew shorter, as if against
tide, and ever its colour was browner with the mud of the Trent and her
sisters.

Presently, as I clung to the rail, there seemed to grow a new sound over
and amid all those to which I had become used--as it were a low
roaring that swelled up in the lulls, and sank and rose again. And I
knew what it was, and held up my hand to my father, listening, and he
heard also. It was the thunder of breakers on a sandy coast to leeward.

He put his whistle to his lips and called shrilly, and the men saw him
if they could not hear, and sprang up, clawing aft through the water
that flooded the waist along the rail.

"Breakers to leeward, men," he cried "we must wear ship, and then shall
clear them. We shall be standing right into Humber after that, as I think."

Arngeir heard the men trampling, if not the whistle, and he was with us
directly, and heard what was to be done.

"It is a chance if the yard stands it," he said, looking aloft.

"Ay, but we cannot chance going about in this sea, and we are too short
of men to lower and hoist again. Listen!"

Arngeir did so, and heard for the first time the growing anger of the
surf on the shore, and had no more doubt. We were then running with the
wind on the port quarter, and it was useless to haul closer to the wind
on that tack, whereas if we could wear safely we should be leaving the
shore at once by a little closer sailing.

"Ran is spreading her nets," said Arngeir, "but if all holds, she will
have no luck with her fishing." [6]

Then we manned the main sheet and the guys from the great yards, but we
were all too few for the task, which needed every man of the fifteen
that we had sailed with. There was the back stay to be set up afresh on
the weather quarter for the new tack also, and three men must see to that.

We watched my father's hand for the word, and steadily sheeted home
until all seemed to be going well. But the next moment there was a crash
and a cry, and we were a mastless wreck, drifting helplessly. Maybe some
flaw of wind took us as the head of the great sail went over, but its
power was too much for the men at guys and back st