They were really in too glad a mood to see anything but sport in the suddenly rocking table. The truth was that the wind had suddenly sprung into a brisk gale, rolling heavy seas and bobbing the little craft about like a cork. The three screamed with laughter, holding fast to their slipping chairs, and Lenore rescued the bottle that was tipping precariously on the buffet.
“We’d better have a little extra one,” she told them. “I’ll be seasick if we don’t.”
She had to speak rather loudly to make herself heard. The wind was no longer laughing lightly and happily at their port bows. It had suddenly burst into a frantic roar, swelling to the proportions of a thunder clap and dying away on a long, weird wail that filled the sky and the sea. Instantly it burst forth loudly again, and the snow whipped against the glass of the ports.
Ned stood up, braced himself, and immediately poured the drinks. But it was not only to save Lenore an attack of sea-sickness. He was also swayed by the fact that the heat of the room seemed to be swiftly escaping. Fortunately, there was still warmth in plenty in the bottle, so he need not be depressed by a mere fall of temperature. He glanced about the room, rather suspecting that one of the ports had been left open. The saloon, however, was as tightly closed as was possible for it to be.
He turned at once, made his way through the gale that swept the deck, and procured Lenore’s and Mrs. Hardenworth’s heaviest coats. He noticed as he passed that Bess had sought refuge in the engine room. Ned waved to her then returned to his guests.
The room was already noticeably colder, not so much from the drop in temperature—a thermometer would have still registered above freezing—as from the chilling, penetrating quality of the wind that forced an entrance as if through the ship’s seams. There seemed no pause, now, between the mighty, roaring gusts. The long, weird wail they had heard at first was only an overtone, in some way oppressive to the imagination. The rattle at the window was loud for the soft sweep of snow. Ned saw why in a moment: the snow had changed to sleet.
There was no opportunity to make comment before Knutsen lurched into the room. “It’s tough, isn’t it?” he commented. “Mr. Cornet, I want another shot of dat stuff before I take de wheel.”
Ned, not uninfluenced by his cups, extended the bottle with a roar of laughter. “You know what’s good for you,” he commented. “Where’s McNab? Let him have one too.”
“He’s still at de wheel, but I don’t think he’d care for one. He’s a funny old wolf, at times. Mrs. Hardenworth, how do you like dis weat’er?”
“I don’t like it very well.” She held fast to the slipping table. “Of course, you’d tell us if there was any danger——”