"Fetch a coil of light rope, Robert," he ordered briefly. "We shall all require to be lashed fast."
"Shall I carry Moira below?" I asked.
He hesitated.
"No, she will have a better chance——"
He checked himself.
"Let her bide on deck. Here we can aid her at need. Haste, boy! We must have the rope before the wind strikes us."
I slid down a stay to the maindeck and dug the rope out of a chest of spare gear which was bolted to the cabin bulkhead. My great-uncle's last words had impressed me even more than the spectacle of that baleful curtain across the northern sky; and I was thrilled, too, by the tense celerity with which the entire crew leaped to the task of preparing the ship to meet the tempest. There was almost no noise—a few shouts of command and hails of acknowledgment; but every man worked as if his life depended upon it. When the jib-sheet fouled Martin slashed it free with his knife, and the sail came down with a run. By the time I had regained the poop the upper spars already were bare.
Murray was standing with Moira and Peter beside the helmsman, and while they stared, fascinated, at the oncoming storm, his eyes were upon the Walrus.
"Flint must be sober," he said bitterly. "He is taking in sail. Stap me, what a fit end to a luckless day! In the hollow of my hand, and now— Aye, 'twould be all ways fitting did he escape, whilst we——"
A snarling moan, as of great winds tortured and confused, came to us from the belly of the storm. The sky darkened. A gust of air, sulfurous and warm, ruffled my hair. The moan became a howl, a clamor.