“S’posin’ we don’t hit her, in this fog!” asked Jean Lafitte.
“It is our business to do that,” was my reply. “In an hour or so more we shall know. How did you leave the ladies, Jean?”
“Jimmy, he’s sicker’n anything,” was his reply, “except the old lady, and she’s sicker’n Jimmy! The young lady, Miss Emory, she’s all right, an’ she’s holdin’ their heads. She says she don’t get sick. Neither do I—ain’t that funny? But gee, this is rougher’n any waves ever was on our lake. What’re you goin’ to do?”
“Hold straight ahead, Jean,” I answered. “Now, wouldn’t you better go back to the others?”
“Naw, I ain’t scared—much. I told Jimmy, I did, any pirate ought to be ashamed to get sick. But they’re all scared. So’m I, some,” he added frankly.
I might have made some confession of my own, had I liked, for I did not, in the least, fancy the look of things; but after a time, I compromised with sturdy Jean by sending him below into the dining saloon, whence he could look out through the glass front and see the tumbling sea ahead. Through the glazed housing I could see him standing, hands in pockets, legs wide, gazing out in the simple confidence that all was well, and enjoying the tumult and excitement of it all in his boyish ignorance.
“He don’t know!” grinned Peterson to me, and I only nodded in silence.
“Where are we, Peterson?” I asked, putting a finger on the wet chart before us.
“I don’t know,” replied the old man. “It depends on the drift, which we can’t calculate. Soundings mean nothing, for she’s shallow for miles. If the fog would break, so we could see the light—there ain’t any fog-buoy on that channel mouth, and it’s murder that there ain’t. It’s this d——d fog that makes it bad.”
I looked at my watch. It was now going on five o’clock, and in this light, it soon would be night for us. Peterson caught the time, and frowned. “Wish’t we was in,” said he. “No use trying to anchor unless we must, anyhow—she’ll ride mighty wet out here. Better buck on into it.”