own off
the face of the water, swept over Inishbawn, stinging and soaking the
watchers at the tents.

"Lord Torrington is on board all right," said Priscilla, "but it's not
father who's steering. It's Peter Walsh."

The _Tortoise_ flew forward, dipping her bow so that once or twice the
water lipped over it. She looked pitiful, like a frightened creature
from whose swift flight all joy had departed. She reached the narrow
passage between Ardilaun and Inishlean. Before her lay the broad water
of Inishbawn Roads, lashed into white fury. But the worst of the squall
was over. The showers of spray ceased for a moment. It was still blowing
strongly, but the fierceness had gone out of the wind.

"She's all right now," said Priscilla, "and anyway there are two life
buoys on board."

Then Peter Walsh did an unexpected thing. He put the tiller down and
began to haul in his main-sheet. The boat rounded up into the wind,
headed straight northwards for the shore of Inishlean. She listed
heavily, lay over till it seemed as if the sail would touch the water.
For an instant she paused, half righted, moved sluggishly towards the
shore. Then, very slowly as it seemed, she leaned down again till her
sail lay flat in the water.

At the moment when she righted, before the final heel over, a man flung
himself across the gunwale into the sea. In his hands he grasped one of
the life buoys.

"It's father," shouted Lady Isabel. "Oh, save him!"

"If he'd stuck to the boat," said Priscilla, "he'd have been all right.
She's ashore this minute on the point of Inishlean. Unless Peter Walsh
has gone suddenly mad I can't imagine why he tried to round up the boat
there and why he hauled in the main-sheet. He was absolutely bound to go
over."

"Perhaps he wanted to land there," said Frank.

"Well," said Priscilla, "he has landed, but he's upset the boat. I never
thought before that Peter Walsh could be such an absolute idiot."

The condemnation was entirely unjust Peter Walsh had, in fact, performed
the neatest feat of seamanship of his whole life. Never in the course
of forty years and more spent in or about small boats had he handled one
with such supreme skill and accuracy. Driven desperately by a squally
and uncertain southeast wind, with a welter of short waves knocking
his boat's head about in the most incalculable way, he had succeeded
in upsetting her about six yards from the shore of an island on to the
point of which she was certain