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When the four boats were near enough together for a man to pass from one to another, one Greek from each of three got into the nearest boat to us, taking his rifle with him. This made five in the foremost boat, and it was plain that their intention was to board us. This they undertook to do, by main strength and sweat, running hand over hand the float-line of a net. And though it was slow, and they stopped frequently to rest, they gradually drew nearer.

Charley smiled at their efforts, and said, “Give her the topsail, Ole.”

The cap at the mainmast head was broken out, and sheet and downhaul pulled flat, amid a scattering rifle fire from the boats; and the Mary Rebecca lay over and sprang ahead faster than ever.

But the Greeks were undaunted. Unable, at the increased speed, to draw themselves nearer by means of their hands, they rigged from the blocks of their boat sail what sailors call a “watch-tackle.” One of them, held by the legs by his mates, would lean far over the bow and make the tackle fast to the float-line. Then they would heave in on the tackle till the blocks were together, when the manoeuvre would be repeated.

“Have to give her the staysail,” Charley said.

Ole Ericsen looked at the straining Mary Rebecca and shook his head. “It will take der masts out of her,” he said.

“And we’ll be taken out of her if you don’t,” Charley replied.

Ole shot an anxious glance at his masts, another at the boat load of armed Greeks, and consented.

The five men were in the bow of the boat–a bad place when a craft is towing. I was watching the behavior of their boat as the great fisherman’s staysail, far, far larger than the topsail and used only in light breezes, was broken out. As the Mary Rebecca lurched forward with a tremendous jerk, the nose of the boat ducked down into the water, and the men tumbled over one another in a wild rush into the stern to save the boat from being dragged sheer under water.

“That settles them!” Charley remarked, though he was anxiously studying the behavior of the Mary Rebecca, which was being driven under far more canvas than she was rightly able to carry.

“Next stop is Antioch!” announced the cheerful sailor, after the manner of a railway conductor. “And next comes Merryweather!”

“Come here, quick,” Charley said to me.

I crawled across the deck and stood upright beside him in the shelter of the sheet steel.

“Feel in my inside pocket,” he commanded, “and get my notebook. That’s right. Tear out a blank page and write what I tell you.”

And this is what I wrote:

Telephone to Merryweather, to the sheriff, the
constable, or the judge. Tell them we are coming and
to turn out the town. Arm everybody. Have them down on
the wharf to meet us or we are gone gooses.

“Now make it good and fast to that marlinspike, and stand by to toss it ashore.”

I did as he directed. By then we were close to Antioch. The wind was shouting through our rigging, the Mary Rebecca was half over on her side and rushing ahead like an ocean greyhound. The seafaring folk of Antioch had seen us breaking out topsail and staysail, a most reckless performance in such weather, and had hurried to the wharf-ends in little groups to find out what was the matter.

Straight down the water front we boomed, Charley edging in till a man could almost leap ashore. When he gave the signal I tossed the marlinspike. It struck the planking of the wharf a resounding smash, bounced along fifteen or twenty feet, and was pounced upon by the amazed onlookers.

It all happened in a flash, for the next minute Antioch was behind and we were heeling it up the San Joaquin toward Merryweather, six miles away. The river straightened out here into its general easterly course, and we squared away before the wind, wing-and-wing once more, the foresail bellying out to starboard.