Moran of the Lady Letty | Page 8

hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grew
tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's forefoot.
"Maybe they're going after hay or wheat."
The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She
came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of
the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind
that they were to make a landing there, when--"
"Stand by for stays," came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had
taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came
about. Then the "Bertha Millner" caught the wind again and lay over
quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the
schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze
grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to
westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water
roughened with white-caps.
"Stand by for stays."
Once again as the rudder went hard over, the "Bertha Millner" fretted
and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind,
chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped
the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and settled
quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straight toward the
Presidio.
"We'll come about again soon," Wilbur told himself, "and stand over
toward the Contra Costa shore."
A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled it on
the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept her course.
Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.
"She must come about soon," he muttered uneasily, "if she's going to
stand up toward Vallejo." His heart sank with a sudden apprehension.
A nervousness he could not overcome seized upon him. The "Bertha
Millner" held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of the Presidio
came the command again:
"Stand by for stays."

Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails flapping
noisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur observed the
bowsprit as it circled like a hand on a dial, watching where now it
would point. It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily,
pointing toward Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden coldness at his heart.
"This isn't going to be so much fun," he muttered between his teeth.
The schooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for
grain. The track toward Lime Point could mean but one thing. The
wind was freshening from the nor'west, the ebb tide rushing out to meet
the ocean like a mill-race, at every moment the Golden Gate opened out
wider, and within two minutes after the time of the last tack the "Bertha
Millner" heeled to a great gust that had come booming in between the
heads, straight from the open Pacific.
"Stand by for stays."
As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib.
"Draw y'r jib."
The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port tack; Lime Point
fell away over the stern rail. The huge ground swells began to come in,
and as she rose and bowed to the first of these it was precisely as
though the "Bertha Millner" were making her courtesy to the great gray
ocean, now for the first time in full sight on her starboard quarter.
The schooner was beating out to sea through the Middle Channel. Once
clear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff House, then
on the next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up in
deadly earnest--they were about to cross the bar. Everything was
battened down, the scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted
like fountains after every plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men
aloft, just in time to escape a gigantic dull green roller that broke like a
Niagara over the schooner's bows, smothering the decks knee-deep in a
twinkling.
The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying like icy
small-shot. Without intermission the "Bertha Millner" rolled and
plunged and heaved and sank. Wilbur was drenched to the skin and
sore in every joint, from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast
to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the schooner's forefoot
crushed down into the heaving water with a hissing like that of steam,
blocks rattled, the Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the

hollow deck till it reverberated like a drum-head. The crossing of the
bar was one long half-hour of confusion and discordant sound.
When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to give the
men their food.
"Git for'rd, sonny," he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. "Git for'rd,
this is tawble dee hote, savvy?"