He hesitated.
David got impatient. "Come, sir," he cried, "don't you hear the lady
invite you? and every moment is precious." And he held out his hand to
him.
Talboys decided on taking it, and he even unbent so far as to jump
vigorously--so vigorously that, David pulling him with force at the
same moment, he came flying into the schooner like a cannon-ball, and,
toppling over on his heels, went down on the seat with his head
resting on the weather gunwale, and his legs at a right angle with his
back.
"That is one way of boarding a craft," muttered David, a little
discontentedly; then to the old boatman: "Here, fling us that
tarpaulin. I say, here is more wind coming; are you sure you can work
that lugger, you two?"
"We will be ashore before you can, now there's nobody to bother us,"
was the prompt reply.
"Then cast loose; here we are, drifting out to sea."
The old man cast the rope loose; David hauled it on board, and the
schooner shot away from her companion and bore up north-north-west,
leaving the luggar rocking from side to side on the rising waves. But
the next minute Lucy saw her sail rise, and she bore up and stood
northeast.
"Good-by to you, little horror," said Lucy.
"We shall fall in with her a good many times more before we make the
land," said David Dodd.
Lucy inquired what he meant; but he had fallen to hauling the sheet
aft and making the sail stand flatter, and did not answer her. Indeed,
he seemed much more taken up with Jack than with her, and, above all,
entirely absorbed in the business of sailing the boat.
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