Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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Peabody watched warily as the mizzen topsail was sheeted home. The Delaware reacted to the added pressure instantly. There was nothing light or graceful about her movements now. She was crashing from wave to wave like a rock down a hillside. Even with the wind well abaft the beam as it was she was leaning over to it, the white foam creaming along her lee side to join her boiling wake.

"Mr. Murray, go aloft, and keep your eye on the strange sail."

"Aye aye, sir."

Peabody looked aft again, and at one of the Delaware's extravagant plunges he once more caught that fleeting glimpse of the British topsail above the horizon. He did not need Murray's hail from above.

"Deck, there! If you please, sir, I think she's nearer."

Peabody's expression did not change. The Delaware was showing all the canvas she could possibly carry, and he had done all he could for the moment. If the wind would only drop a little, or the sea moderate, she would walk away from that tub of a two-decker. If not, it would only be by the aid of special measures that she would be able to escape, and those measures, which involved considerable sacrifice, he would not take until the necessity was proved.