"Shut your door," said the captain, "or you will be washed out of your berth; and wait till to-morrow."
I wondered what he meant, but before I could ask him, before he could close my cabin door, a great sea towered and poised for an instant behind him, then bowed over him and carried him into the room. It drenched the whole room and everything and everybody in it; then swept out again as the ship rolled to starboard.
My travelling companion in the middle berth uttered such sounds as I had never heard before in my life, and will probably never hear again unless it be in the North Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Yakutat or Katalla. She made one attempt to descend to the floor; but at sight of the captain who was struggling to take a polite departure after his anything but polite entrance, she uttered the most dreadful sound of all and fell back into her berth.
I have never seen any intoxicated man teeter and lurch as he did, trying to get out of our cabin. I sat upon the stool where I had been washed and dashed by the sea, and laughed.
He made it at last. He uttered no apologies and no adieux; and never have I seen a man so openly relieved to escape from the presence of ladies.
I closed the window. Disrobing was out of the question. I could neither stand nor sit without holding tightly to something with both hands for support; and when I had lain down, I found that I must hold to both sides of the berth to keep myself in.
"Serves you right," complained the occupant of the middle berth, "for staying up on the texas until such an unearthly hour. I'm glad you can't undress. Maybe you'll come in at a decent hour after this!"
It is small wonder that Behring and Chirikoff disagreed and drifted apart in the North Pacific Ocean. It is my belief that two angels would quarrel if shut up in a stateroom in a "Yakutat blow"—than which only a "Yakataga blow" is worse; and it comes later.
I am convinced, after three summers spent in voyaging along the Alaskan coast to Nome and down the Yukon, that quarrelling with one's room-mate on a long voyage aids digestion. My room-mate and I have never agreed upon any other subject; but upon this, we are as one.
Neither effort nor exertion is required to begin a quarrel. It is only necessary to ask with some querulousness, "Are you going to stand before that mirror all day?" and hey, presto! we are instantly at it with hammer and tongs.