Then the wind really came, and the Arletta tried to take it. The mast stood; the stays strained but did not snap. Below, not above, was the damage; for the foot of the mast, though it stood, opened seams and water rushed in.
Jay and Lyman bent to the pumps. Pump, pump, pump it went, by hand and arm, with back bent. Pump, pump, to stay afloat at all. Pump; an hour on, an hour off while the port watch pumped, pumped, pumped. Your turn again, yours and Lyman's to pump and pump.
A good thing, training; a good thing, to be used to pull, pull, pull at your oar in a race for four miles. But that, after twenty minutes, was over. No end to this; none in sight; but Lyman and Jay, pumping, made it a sort of Harvard-Yale event against the crew of the Saracen, who were Cornell and Princeton. Jay called like a coxswain to Lyman: "Come up, Yale; come up! Princeton's rowing thirty-six." And, like a Harvard coxswain, Lyman yelled back at Jay.
Rain followed the big blow, blinding, squall-swept rain through which, toward dawn, beat the sound of a steamer's whistle.
Ken replied with the foghorn. Ken had been below, taking his turn at the pumps, but he happened to be on deck for this. It was still so dark that he held flashlights and played them on the sail to increase the chance of being seen; and the steamer came so close that it hailed:
"Want help? Want help?"
Ken called to his crew and replied: "We're racing, thanks; thank you, but we're racing!"
They never had another hail; they never saw another
