Hector said that pirates
and other seafaring people generally lashed the rudder to something or
other, and hauled in the main top-jib, during severe squalls, and thought
we ought to try to do something of the kind; but I was for letting her
have her head to the wind.
As my advice was by far the easiest to follow, we ended by adopting it,
and contrived to embrace the gunwale and give her her head.
The boat travelled up stream for about a mile at a pace I have never
sailed at since, and don't want to again. Then, at a bend, she heeled
over till half her sail was under water. Then she righted herself by a
miracle and flew for a long low bank of soft mud.
That mud-bank saved us. The boat ploughed its way into the middle of it
and then stuck. Finding that we were once more able to move according to
our ideas, instead of being pitched and thrown about like peas in a
bladder, we crept forward, and cut down the sail.
We had had enough sailing. We did not want to overdo the thing and get a
surfeit of it. We had had a sail - a good all-round exciting,
interesting sail - and now we thought we would have a row, just for a
change like.
