"Must a-split in half just before she hit us," the mate concurred. "And kept all the rain in the second half--" Van Horn broke off with an oath. "Hey! What's the matter along you fella boy?" he shouted to the man at the wheel. For the ketch, under her spanker which had just then been flat-hauled, had come into the wind, emptying her after-sail and permitting her headsails to fill on the other tack. The _Arangi_ was beginning to work back approximately over the course she had just traversed. And this meant that she was going back toward Jerry floundering in the sea. Thus, the balance, on which his life titubated, was inclined in his favour by the blunder of a black steersman. Keeping the _Arangi_ on the new tack, Van Horn set Borckman clearing the mess of ropes on deck, himself, squatting in the rain, undertaking to long-splice the tackle he had cut. As the rain thinned, so that the crackle of it on deck became less noisy, he was attracted by a sound from out over the water. He suspended the work of his hands to listen, and, when he recognized Jerry's wailing, sprang to his feet, galvanized into action. "The pup's overboard!" he shouted to Borckman. "Back your jib to wind'ard!" He sprang aft, scattering a cluster of return boys right and left. "Hey! You fella boat's crew! Come in spanker sheet! Flatten her down good fella!" He darted a look into the binnacle and took a hurried compass bearing of the sounds Jerry was making. "Hard down your wheel!" he ordered the helmsman, then leaped to the wheel and put it down himself, repeating over and over aloud, "Nor'east by east a quarter, nor'east by east a quarter." Back and peering into the binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail from Jerry in the hope of verifying his first hasty bearing. But not long he waited. Despite the fact that by his manoeuvre the _Arangi_ had been hove to, he knew that windage and sea-driftage would quickly send her away from the swimming puppy. He shouted Borckman to come aft and haul in the whaleboat, while he hurried below for his electric torch and a boat compass. The ketch was so small that she was compelled to tow her one whaleboat astern on long double painters, and by the time the mate had it hauled in under the stern, Van Horn was back. He was undeterred by the barbed wire, lifting boy after boy of the boat's crew over it and dropping them sprawling into the boat, following himself, as the last, by swinging over on the spanker boom, and calling his last instructions as the painters were cast off. "Get a riding light on deck, Borckman. Keep her hove to. Don't hoist the mainsail. Clean up the decks and bend the watch tackle on the main boom." He took the steering-sweep and encouraged the rowers with: "Washee-washee, good fella, washee-washee!"--which is the beche-de-mer for "row hard."