Priscilla's Spies
The breeze had freshened a little, and the Tortoise made good way
through the calm water. Frank began to feel some little trust in
Priscilla. She handled the boat with an air of confidence which was
reassuring. His conscience was troubling him less than it did. There
is nothing in the world equal to sailing as a means of quieting anxious
consciences. A man may be suffering mental agonies from the recollection
of some cruel and cold-blooded murder which he happens to have
committed. On land his life would be a burden to him. But let him go
down to the sea in a small white sailed ship, and in forty-eight hours
or less, he will have ceased to feel any remorse for his victim. This
may be the reason why all Protestant nations are maritime powers. Having
denied themselves the orthodox anaesthetic of the confessional, these
peoples have been obliged to take to the sea as a means of preventing
their consciences from harrying them. Driven forth across the waves by
the clamorous importunity of the voice within, they, of very necessity,
acquire a certain skill in the management of boats, a skill which sooner
or later leads to the burdensome possession of a navy and so to maritime
importance. It is interesting to see how this curious law works out in
quite modern times.
The Italian navy is now considerable, but it has only become so since
the people were driven to the sea as a consequence of the anti-clerical
feeling which led them to desert the confessional. It is quite possible
that the Portuguese, having in their new Republic developed a strong
antipathy to sacraments and so laid up for themselves a future of
spiritual disquiet, may see their ancient maritime glories revived, and
in seeking relief beyond the mouth of the Tagus from the gnawings of
their consciences, may give birth to some reincarnation of Vasco da Gama
or Prince Henry, the Navigator.
“I don’t think,” said Priscilla, looking round her searchingly, “that
he’s anywhere in this bay. How’s your ankle?”
“It’s quite comfortable,” said Frank.
“I asked,” said Priscilla, “because in order to get out of the bay I
shall have to jibe, and that means that you’ve got to hop across the
centreboard case.”
Frank had not the least idea of what happens when a small boat jibes. He
intended to ask for information, but was not given any opportunity.
The boom, which had hitherto behaved with dignity and self-possession,
suddenly swung across the boat with such swiftness that he had no time
to duck his head to avoid it. His straw hat, struck on the brim, was
swept over the side of the boat. He found himself thrown down against
the gunwale, while a quantity of cold water poured over his legs. He
grasped the centreboard case, the nearest stable thing at hand, and
pulled himself up again into the middle of the boat. Priscilla, a good
deal tangled in a writhing rope, was struggling past the tiller to the
windward side.
“What’s happened?” asked Frank.
“Jibed all standing,” said Priscilla. “I didn’t mean to, of course. I
must have been sailing her by the lee. But it’s all right. We didn’t
ship more than a bucketful. I say, I’m rather sorry about your hat; but
that’s a rotten kind of hat in a boat anyway. Would you mind getting up
to windward? I’ve got to luff her a bit and she’ll heel over.”
“Is it gone?”
“What? Oh, the hat. Yes, quite. We couldn’t get it without jibing
again.”
“Don’t let us do that,” said Frank, “if we can help it.
“I won’t. But do get up to windward. That is to say if your ankle’s not
too bad. I must luff a bit or we’ll go ashore. The water’s getting very
shallow.”
Frank scrambled over the centreboard case and bumped down on the floor
boards on the windward side of the boat Priscilla pushed over the tiller
and began to haul vigorously on the main sheet. The Tortoise swept round,
heeled over and rushed through the water on a broad reach. The wind, so
it seemed to Frank, began to blow much harder than before. He clung to
the weather stay and watched the bubbling water tear past within an
inch or two of the lower gunwale. A sudden spasm of extreme nervousness
seized him. He looked anxiously at Priscilla. She seemed to be entirely
calm and self-possessed. His self-respect reasserted itself. He
remembered that she was merely a girl. He set his teeth and determined
to show no sign of fear. Gradually the exhilaration of the motion, the
coolness of the breeze through his hair, the dancing, impulsive rush of
the boat, and the shining white of the sail in front of him conquered
his qualms. He began to enjoy himself as he had never in his life
enjoyed himself before.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “this is fine.”
“Topping,” said Priscilla.
The feel of the cricket ball caught clean in the centre of the bat, sent
in one clear flight to square leg across the boundary line, is glorious.
Frank knew the exultation of such moments. The dash across the goal
line from a swiftly taken pass is a thing to live for. Frank, as a fast
three-quarter back, knew that too. But this tearing of a heeling boat
through bubbling green water became to him, when he got over the first
terror of it, a delirious joy.
“That’s Inishminna ahead of us to windward,” said Priscilla. “Flanagan
lives there, who hired him the old boat. He might be there, but he
isn’t. I can see the whole slope of the island. We’ll slip under the lee
of the end of it past Illaunglos. It’s a likely enough island.”
Frank suddenly remembered that they were in pursuit of a German spy. The
remainder of his scepticism forsook him. Amid such surroundings, with
the singing of the wind and the gurgling swish of the flying boat in his
ears, any adventure seemed possible. The prosaic limitations of ordinary
life dropped off from him. Only it seemed a pity to find the spy, since
finding him would stop their sailing.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said. “Don’t let us bother about the old spy.
Let’s go on sailing.”
“Just hunker down a bit,” said Priscilla, “and look under the foot of
the sail. I can’t see to leeward. Is there anything like a tent on that
island?”
Frank curled himself into a cramped and difficult attitude. He peered
under the sail and made his report.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, “except three bullocks. But I can only
see two sides of the island.”
“We’ll open the north side in a minute,” said Priscilla. “He can’t be at
the west end of it, for it is all bluff and boulders. If he isn’t on the
north shore he’s not there at all.
Frank twisted himself again into the bottom of the boat, and peeped
under the sail. The north shore of Illaunglos held no tent.
“Good,” said Priscilla. “Well stand on. The next island is Inishark.
He may be there. There’s a well on it, and he’d naturally want to camp
somewhere within reach of water.”
Frank, still curled up beside the centreboard case, gazed under the sail
at Inishark. The boat, swaying and dipping in a still freshening breeze,
sped on.
“Is there any large white stone on the ridge of the island?” he asked.
“No,” said Priscilla. “There isn’t a white stone of any size in the
whole bay. It’s most likely a sheep.”
“It’s not a sheep. Nobody ever saw a sheep with a back that went up into
a point. I believe it’s the top of a tent. Steer for it, Priscilla.”
Frank was aglow with excitement. The sailing intoxicated him. The sight
of the triangular apex of the tent put himself beside himself.
“Turn the boat, Priscilla. Go down to the island.”
Priscilla was cooler.
“We’ll hold on a minute,” she said, “and make sure. There’s no use
running all that way down to leeward until we’re certain. We’d only have
to beat up again.”
“It is a tent,” said Frank. “I can see now. There are two tents.”
Priscilla caught his excitement She knelt on the floor boards, crooked
her elbow over the tiller, leaned over the side of the boat and stared
under the sail at the island.
“That’s him,” she said. “Now, Cousin Frank, we’ll have to jibe again to
get down there. Do you think you can be a bit nippier in getting over
the centreboard than you were last time. It’s blowing harder, and it
won’t do to upset. You very nearly had us over before.”
Frank was too excited to notice that she now put the whole blame of
the sudden violence of the last jibe on him. Thinking over the matter
afterwards, he remembered that she had apologised at the time for her
own bad steering. Now she wanted to hold his awkwardness responsible for
what might have been a disaster.
“All right,” he said, “All right I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
“I won’t risk it,” said Priscilla. “You’d mean to do all right, but you
wouldn’t when the time came. That ankle of yours, you know. After all,
it’s just as easy to run her up into the wind and stay her.”
“There’s a man at the door of one of the tents looking at us through a
pair of glasses,” said Frank.
“Let him,” said Priscilla.
She was hauling in the main sheet as the boat swept up into the wind.
“Now, Cousin Frank, ready about. You must slack off the jib sheet and
haul down the other. That thin rope at your hand. Yes, that’s it.”
The meaning of this new manoeuvre was dim and uncertain to Frank. He
grasped the rope indicated to him and then heard a noise as if some one
at the bottom of the sea, an angry mermaid perhaps, was striking the
keel of the boat hard with a hammer.
“She’s touching,” said Priscilla. “Up centreboard, quick.”
Frank gazed at her in pained bewilderment. He had not the least idea of
what she wanted him to do. The knocking at the boat’s bottom became more
frequent and violent. Priscilla gave the main sheet a turn round a
cleat and stretched forward, holding the tiller with her left hand. She
grasped a rope, one out of a tangled web of wet ropes, and tugged. The
knocking ceased. The boat swept up into the wind. There was a sudden
arrest of movement, a violent list over, a dart forward, a soft
crunching sound, and then a dead stop.
“Bother,” said Priscilla, “we’re aground.”
She sprang overboard at once, stood knee deep in the water, and tugged
at the stern of the boat The centreboard, when she dropped its rope,
fell to the bottom of its case, caught in the mud under the boat, and
anchored her immovably. Priscilla tugged in vain.
“It’s no good,” she said at last, “and the tide’s ebbing. We’re here for
hours and hours. I hope you didn’t hurt your ankle, Cousin Frank, during
that fray.”
CHAPTER VII
“That fellow is still looking at us through his glasses,” said Frank.
“Can’t help it,” said Priscilla, “If it amuses him he can go on looking
at us for the next four hours.”
She gathered her dripping skirt round her and stepped into the boat
“Sylvia Courtney,” she said, “told me last term that her favorite poem
in English literature, is ‘Gray’s Elegy’ on account of it’s being so
full of calm. Sometimes I think that Sylvia Courtney is rather a beast.”
“She must be a rotter,” said Frank, “if she said that.”
“All the same, there’s no use our fretting ourselves into a fuss. We
can’t get out of this unless we had the wings of a dove, so we may as
well take the sails off the boat.”
She climbed across Frank, loosed the halyard and brought the lug down
into the boat with a sudden run. Frank was buried in the folds of it.
After some struggling he got his head out and breathed freely.
“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me you were going to
do that?”
Priscilla was gathering the foresail in her arms.
“I thought you knew,” she said.
“I didn’t know the beastly thing was going to come down on my head.”
“That fellow on the island,” said Priscilla, “is getting down his tents
and seems to be in a mighty hurry. He’s got a woman helping him. Do
you think she could be a female spy? There are such things. They carry