'Where will you run to, you young scapegrace?' said Pickard. 'How is it you haven't got that rope stowed away yet? Look sharp, or the end of it will make acquaintance with your shoulders.'
And so they talked and joked, and moralized too, by times, until the day began to dawn; and the order was given, as the wind had freshened, to clew up the courses and wash the deck.
They were still within sight of the Cornish coast when the sun rose gloomily into the thickening sky, assuming the cold red hue which characterizes a frosty morning, and then the dull greasy look which bespeaks a thaw, or maybe a storm.
Before nine o'clock the ship had been so far eased of canvas that she was scudding under topsails. Dark banks of clouds began to lower in the horizon. The wind, which had risen to a gusty gale, and veered frequently, swept and howled through the rigging; and so threatening were appearances that when Jim Ortop went whistling up the shrouds to execute some trifling order, he had to run the gauntlet for it as soon as he reached the deck.
'You whistling rascal!' said Cole; 'don't you know you can't be whistling when there's a wind without raising a hurricane? If I hear you at that again, I'll make a figure-head of you.'
But the warning came too late. The wind, which had been chopping about, determinately settled into a stern sou-wester, and began to muster its forces for a deadly assault. Gusty and gustier still, it swept the rain-clouds hurriedly along the sky, exciting the billows into a wild tumult.
The captain was obliged to alter his course a point or two, in consequence of this state of things; but he kept the vessel's head as close to the wind as possible, and carried all the sail she would bear.
'We shall have a dirty time of it, Mr. Mogford,' he said, 'We must batten all down, and keep her facing it as long as we can.'
'There's no telling, sir,' replied the mate, 'how it may go. We haven't got the worst of it yet, for certain.'
Nor had they. Hour after hour the tempest increased in violence, until it became a perfect hurricane. Pausing to take breath, and sobbing and sighing, as if in vexation whilst it lulled, the raging wind recovered itself to blow more frantically, bending the brig to the gunwale, and sending green waves over her, whose hissing crests rose haughtily, and broke in briny showers amid her spars and rigging. Right skilfully did Stauncy handle her, and gallantly she carried herself, struggling bravely with the wild, writhing billows, which chased each other like giants at their gambols.