He picked up the model, and twisted the yards again so that they slanted sharply across the hull, making a small angle with its middle line. "Now she's braced sharp up, or close hauled – every sheet's hauled in – on the wind, and we'll start her heading north-east on the port tack. That is, the wind's on the port side of her, though we could have started on the opposite one heading north-west, if we had liked. Run that line along, and you'll find it makes an angle of four points of the compass, or forty-five degrees, with the wind, which makes it evident that by and by you come to the edge of the first quarter of the circle at east. Then, if we put the ship round with the wind on her opposite side, and sail at the same angle as far again, we come back to north, where the wind is blowing from, and when you grasp that you've got the principle of the whole thing. With the wind behind you all sails flowing, when you're working up against it, everything's flattened in, but you have to remember that all vessels don't sail equally close to the wind, and while a racing cutter will lie very close indeed, a shallow full-bowed hooker must have it almost on her side to keep her going. That's why I took four points as a handy example, because two tacks of forty-five degrees would bring us back again."
"But why doesn't the wind shove her away sideways when she's close-hauled?" asked Appleby.
Lawson nodded approval. "That shows you're following, it does," he said. "Still it don't amount to very much if the vessel's deep, because all of her that's in the water offers resistance to it. They all slide off a little, and that's the leeway."
"Well," said Niven, "when the wind's so to speak almost against her, what makes her go ahead at all?"
Lawson grinned. "What makes a kite go up against the wind? You see the sails of a close-hauled ship make about the same angle to it as a kite does. They didn't teach you that at school?"
"I think they did," said Appleby. "There's something very like it in the parallelogram of forces."
"The biscuit's yours," said Lawson. "Get that into you, and you know all the whys of sailing."
He yawned and bent over his book, repeating snatches of curious ditties about green to green and red to red, and steamers crossing, but Appleby remembered what he had heard, which was fortunate, because it was the only instruction that anybody ever gave him on board the Aldebaran. Then the cook banged on something in his galley, and Niven, who got up and stretched himself, went along to bring in the tea. He came back with a big steaming can and grinned at Appleby.
"They'll be getting very different tucker at home," he said. "Still, it will be beastly cold and wet up there just now."
His merriment was evidently a trifle forced, and another lad who lay poring over a book in a corner raised his head.
"Oh, shut up!" he said. "We've heard all that before, and you don't do it very well. If I could get back into the shop the governor found me I'd like to catch myself going to sea. Oh, great handspikes! Just listen to the brute."
A storm of venomous language came forward from the poop, and through the drowsy flap of canvas and stillness of the dazzling ocean there rang the strident voice of the mate. Lawson slowly shook his head.
"She was scarcely steering, and Biddulph has let her fall off," he said. "They've stood a good deal forward, but that mate of ours is pushing them too far."
Then there was silence that seemed deepened by the light flap and rustle of sailcloth and gurgle of shining brine, but the peace of the day had gone, and the shadow which crept into the four young faces was that which has darkened so many lives at sea. They had all been used to discipline, and did not resent it, while it had been made evident to two of them of late that on board a sailing ship toil that is brutal as well as perilous is often a necessity. They would also have undertaken it more or less cheerfully, but there had been added to it a ruthless tyranny, and Appleby's little sigh seemed to ask the question that downtrodden men have asked from the beginning – why such things must be? And, for he was young, he could not find an answer.
A little breeze sprang up after sunset, and the ship was sliding faster through a sea that blazed about her with lights of green and gold when Appleby hung about the deck, held still and silent by something in the harmonies of the night. There was no moon, but there was also no cloud in the sky, and the great stars the mast-heads swayed across hung set far back one behind the other in the blue, while the spires of canvas towered black and sharp under their cold light. Not a cloth rustled, but there came down from the gossamer tracery of rigging a little musical humming that suggested the chanting of an invisible choir.
Forward a black figure was visible on the forecastle. Here and there another showed along the dusky line of bulwarks, and now and then Appleby could see the dark shape of the mate standing high upon the poop. This, however, was not often, because he preferred to keep the great shadowy mainsail between himself and it. Night and sea were still and peaceful, and that sinister figure alone jarred upon their serenity.
Suddenly the harsh voice he feared broke the silence, and Appleby instinctively set his lips when he saw his comrade cross the deck. It was noticeable that Niven went at a trot, and if he had been told that one side of the poop is usually sacred to the officer of the watch knowing that haste was advisable he forgot. A moment or two later he stood panting at the head of the ladder, which rose about six feet from the deck, and the mate strode towards him with arm drawn back. Possibly something had ruffled his temper, which was at the best a bad one, that night.
"There are two ladders to this poop, and this will teach you which is yours," he said.
Then before Niven could speak the arm shot out, and the breathless lad reeled backwards with head swimming and a tingling face. The blow had possibly not been a very cruel one, but the Aldebaran swung her stern up just then, and the opening in the rails was close behind him. He went out through it backwards, caught his foot on the rung of the ladder, and pitching over came down with a sickening thud on deck. Appleby, who had seen it all, ran aft and knelt down beside him.
"Chriss, are you hurt?" he gasped.
There was no answer, and hearing a rattle on the ladder the lad looked up, and saw the mate standing close by. He had his hands in his pockets, but there was an unpleasant look in his face.
"Shamming. Take him forward," he said, and stooped as though about to shake the lad who still lay motionless.
He, however, straightened himself as Appleby rose up, and stood before him, quivering, with hand clenched and a blaze in his eyes.
"Get back! You have done enough," he said, and if Niven could have heard it he would scarcely have recognized his comrade's voice.
"Hello!" the mate said sharply. "Were you talking to me?"
"Yes," said Appleby hoarsely, but very quietly. "And I have a little more to tell you. You can't do these things with impunity, and we'll have you kicked out of the Company for this."
It was not, of course, a judicious speech, but Appleby was scarcely in a state to decide what was most fitting then. The mate moved a pace nearer him, and his hands were out of his pockets now, but he stopped close by Appleby, for the lad stood stiffly upright, his face grey with passion.
"I'll make you sorry. Get him out of this," he said.
Then Niven raised himself a little, and blinked dizzily at both of them. "I think I could get up if you helped me, Tom," he said.
Appleby shivered a little as he saw the red smear on the back of his head, but before he moved an elderly man with a sour face and grizzled hair came down the ladder and stopped in front of them. He glanced at Niven and then at Appleby, but it is probable that a scene of the kind was not quite new to him, and his face was expressionless.
"Well, what's it all about?" he said.
Appleby had but once or twice spoken to the captain, who was a grim, silent man, and not seen very often in fine weather. Whether he was contented with the mate's conduct was not apparent, but as usual it was the latter who