When they were fairly out of the semi-shelter of the point behind which Hollis lay, Tunis and his two companions realized very quickly just what they had to contend with.  They had spread a handbreadth of mainsail, but the jib was blown out of the boltropes by one big swoop of wind and carried down to leeward, looking like a giant’s shirt.

“Still feel that tug to sta’bbo’d,” grumbled Horry.  “Just like—­”

“Belay that!” commanded Tunis.  “I begin to believe that’s bad luck, anyway.  If you hadn’t got on to that tack when we first put the schooner into commission, those Portygees wouldn’t have even remembered the Marlin B. And that schooner thousands of miles away from these seas!”

“I cal’late ’Rion Latham would have found something else to harp on then,” said Zebedee.  “He was bound to ruin you if he could.”

Quickly the gale increased instead of abating, and it was utterly impossible for the trio to get topsails on her.  She needed the pull of upper canvas if she was to tack properly for the mouth of the channel into Big Wreck Cove.

They fought for two hours to bring this much-desired object to pass, hoping for a lull or a shifting of the gale which might aid them.  The yellow sands of Wreckers’ Head were plainly in view all that time.  To give up the attempt and run before the gale was a folly of which Tunis Latham had no intention of being guilty if it could possibly be avoided.  Manned as she was, the schooner might never be worked back to a landfall if they did so.

The keen old eyes of Horace Newbegin first spied the thing which promised hope.  From his station at the wheel he shouted something which the younger men did not catch, but his pointing arm drew their gaze shoreward.

Coming out from the Head was an open boat.  Four figures pulled at the oars while another held the steering sweep.  The daring crew was heading the boat straight on for the pitching schooner!

“The coast guard!” the old man was now heard to shout.  “God bless them fellers!”

But Tunis knew it was not the lifeboat from the distant station.  He knew the boat, if he could not at first identify those who manned it.  It was an old lifeboat that had been stored in a shed below John-Ed Williams’ place, and these men attempting their rescue were some of the neighbors from Wreckers’ Head.

They came on steadily, the steersman standing at his post and handling the long oar as though it was a feather’s weight.  His huge figure soon identified him.  It was Captain John Dunn, who, like Ira Ball, had left the sea, and he had left his right forearm, too, because of some accident somewhere on the other side of the globe.  But with the steel hook screwed to its stump and the good hand remaining to him, Captain Dunn handled that steering oar with more skill than most other men with two good hands could have done.

How the four at the oars pulled the heavy boat!  Tunis sought to identify them as well.  He saw John-Ed Williams—­in a place at last where he was forced to keep up his end, though he was notably a lazy man.  Ben Brewster had the oar directly behind John-Ed.