We Asked Him About Kith And Kin.
Beside Him Sat A Sprightly Damsel Of Sixty, His Daughter.
"She is
all I have," he murmured plaintively, "and she has no children
living."
The cutter was a small, sloop-rigged affair, but large it seemed
alongside Tehei's canoe. On the other hand, when we got out on the
lagoon and were struck by another heavy wind-squall, the cutter
became liliputian, while the Snark, in our imagination, seemed to
promise all the stability and permanence of a continent. They were
good boatmen. Tehei and Bihaura had come along to see us home, and
the latter proved a good boatwoman herself. The cutter was well
ballasted, and we met the squall under full sail. It was getting
dark, the lagoon was full of coral patches, and we were carrying on.
In the height of the squall we had to go about, in order to make a
short leg to windward to pass around a patch of coral no more than a
foot under the surface. As the cutter filled on the other tack, and
while she was in that "dead" condition that precedes gathering way,
she was knocked flat. Jib-sheet and main-sheet were let go, and she
righted into the wind. Three times she was knocked down, and three
times the sheets were flung loose, before she could get away on that
tack.
By the time we went about again, darkness had fallen. We were now
to windward of the Snark, and the squall was howling.
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