Double Eagle lost her wind after sunset, and she wallowed all night on a black sea plated by moonlight and filled with phosphoresence. She would have sat as still as an anchored ship if it weren’t for the Gulf Stream’s countercurrent, which nudged her along at a knot or two. A squall came down on her in the hour before dawn: a dense rain slanting before westerly gusts, blowing into her face and against the current, raising contrary seas that picked her up at the bow and slammed her down hard by the stern. Somehow or other, the port davit line sprung loose, the tender crashed stern first into the water. Hanging at a forty-five-degree angle, the tender’s back end swamped, which made the steering heavy. Nathaniel standing to the helm, Will, Eliot, and Drew hauled on the davit line to trice up the tender, but the seawater in it made it as heavy as a boulder. The boat would have to be bailed out first. Drew, the lightest of the four, volunteered. One end of a lifeline was made fast to the taffrail, the other to his waist with a bowline. He grabbed a bucket and swung over the rail and stood for a moment, looking down at the dark waves, any one of which could sweep him away if the lifeline slipped. This wasn’t like the brawl in New York; this wasn’t reflex. He was conscious of what he was doing, and of the risk; but, to his happiness, he discovered that he could act at the same time that he was afraid. He dropped down and commenced to bail, but for every two buckets emptied, the lumpy seas tossed in one. We’re not using our heads, he thought, and called to Will and Eliot to ease the starboard davit line. As they did, he crawled, or, rather, climbed, to the tender’s bow and straddled it, his eighty-five pounds and the slackened rope lowering it, while raising the stern: only a foot, but enough to keep the seas from pouring in. With the tender now on a more even keel, he bailed her dry, and then Will and Eliot yanked on the lifeline, pulling him back on board. The tender was triced up, the ropes secured. Eliot whispered to Nathaniel, “If I ever hear you say he doesn’t have a sailor’s heart, I’ll bean you with a belaying pin.”