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 to drift, with no more than four feet of water under her at the critical moment. The Tortoise, having no ballast in her and depending entirely for stability on her fin-like centreboard was not, as Peter Walsh knew very well, in the smallest danger of sinking. He climbed quietly on her gunwale as she finally lay down and sat there, stride-legs, not even wet below the waist, until she grounded on the curved point of the island. The performance was a triumphant demonstration of Peter Walsh’s unmatched skill.