"Oh, rather--of course," Adrian agreed warmly; he did not intend to tell his sister all he thought about their position, but he assumed the tiller.
Christobel protested eagerly.
"Truly, Addie, I'm not tired."
"All right, you're not, old lady; but we've got a stiffish time ahead, you know. We're going to take this in turns, so save yourself for your watch. Why don't you go in and take an easy now?"
But Crow refused. She preferred the frenzied turmoil and Addie's company, outside, to the warm ease within, and the neighbourhood of this strange girl.
Brother and sister sat shoulder to shoulder in the spray-wet darkness holding the tiller between them, for it took one man's strength at least to keep it steady.
The white yawl ran like a terrified deer pursued by hounds. With her wet sheets straining hard as steel, she tore through, and over, the black cauldron of leaping water. Wherever sea is, there must be a little lessening of darkness, for dim reflection comes from somewhere in the sky. It is only darkness made faintly visible, just enough to show up its terrors. Masses of torn cloud raced above them with a mad speed that dazzled; heavy sea thundered along below. Walls of dread closed them in, shut them down, tried to force them back, opened for them below. And there was no sight or sound of human company, no possibility of a human hand to cling to, no chance of a word of human sympathy. Christobel had had some experience, but, she owned to herself, never one like this--and she prayed that, if they came through it alive, she might never see it again. It was so cruel.
In "running free" as they were, the strain on vessel and steersman is greatest. The ship, whatever her rig, does not run without using every mite of her power to escape from the pressure to which she is held. Her natural motion is, of course, to sweep clean round, because of the weight on the mainsail, but the rudder holding her to a straight line is in the power of the helmsman, and with all that force will she rush ahead to get away, as it were, from the drive of it. In this headlong flight, too, the least variation of the tiller causes her to swoop in a terrifying way, while she leaves behind her a path of bubbling foam as white as the wake of a steamer.
Once Christobel began to speak about the girl asleep in the saloon; she thought it would distract them both from the dread monotony; also she was curious about her. But Adrian refused.
"Let's cut her out, Crow," he said. "I think there isn't an ounce of doubt that she's a young Hun. How she comes to be here we shall know in time--but her manners and customs are--well--you know. It does not beseem me as a male Briton to abuse a female, even a Hun female, so, if you don't mind, we'll cut her out. One thing I'll say, I'm taking off my hat to old Pam all the time. She had a rotten time over that brooch, and over Badger too--while--oh, never mind!"