The Mystery of the Sea-Lark

The task which Jack had undertaken was not so formidable as it might have been, for everything was in his favor. The end of a manila hawser was cast to him. This he made fast to the quarter-bitts, and then he headed due east to clear the end of Greenport breakwater. When once she felt the strain of the hawser holding her back, the little _Sea-Lark_ tugged and fretted like a greyhound puppy at its leash, for she had a dead weight of several hundred tons dragging at her heels. And for a few minutes that dead weight almost seemed to be anchored securely to the bottom of the ocean. But the steady pull of the sloop presently began to tell. The schooner moved sluggishly, reluctantly, but the main point was that she moved, and before long the _Sea-Lark_ had enough way on to make a steady three knots an hour, for the wind could not have been blowing from a more satisfactory quarter.

Exciting moments came when a particularly strong gust swept down on the two craft. With her boom swung away out, to catch the full benefit of the wind, the _Sea-Lark_ strained her slender mast now and again more than Jack cared to contemplate. There was no "give" to ease her, with that solid weight dragging astern. Sometimes, also, a following sea hit the sloop viciously, breaking over her quarter, half drenching the boy at her wheel, and pouring down into the cockpit. Once, after the sloop had been struck in this manner, Captain Jordan hailed the _Sea-Lark_ from the deck of the schooner.