It was snug and cosy in the little fo'c'sle and Dare, stripped of his oilskins, listened with growing pleasure in his environment to the wail of the wind, the beat of the rain, and the uneasy chafing of the boat and the shipping in her vicinity as the wind streamed through their rigging.
Now and then there sounded a long warning note from a siren, a dog would bark, and a solitary cart rattle by on the cobble-stoned quay.
A stormy night, Ben prophesied, but as they were snug in harbour they could ignore the weather. Ben, like the seasoned campaigner he was, went about the business of boiling the kettle, and in a short time he had fashioned a delectable meal consisting of a roasted piece of cod fish, cold ham, pickles, bread, butter, jam, and tea, all tasting a little of smoke and the tang of salt water.
Dare, as he consumed prodigious quantities of this fare, felt he had never supped better in his life. After the meal was finished he made himself useful and washed up. Ben filled his pipe and took his pleasure of it. His work done, Dare stretched out on a blanket. For awhile both he and Ben maintained a strict silence, listening to the steady drip of the rain on deck.
"We won't telegraph the cap'n till to-morrer," Ben said at last. "He won't be expectin' us to get here before then. As it's a dirty night and'll be dark early, we won't go ashore now but take our comfort here."
Dare, lying on his back, his head supported by his clasped hands, nodded contentedly. St. Pierre was lying waiting for him. He could afford to be patient. There would be all the joy of discovery in watching the town awake next morning.
"Ah, these is good times, Mr. Dare," said Ben after another silence. "It does my heart good to be lyin' here like this. Many's the time I've laid me down to sleep to the sound of wind and water, and woke to hear the cry of the watch, and the sound of the waves striking like a steel hammer on the deck overhead. And other nights there was when I took me blankets on deck and laid me down under the stars, with the sea that smooth you could frame it like a picture with the horizon, and the air that warm an' soft you would be thinkin' you was in the tropics, instead of in the Western Ocean not two days sail from the Azores."
Dare nodded dreamily, Ben's voice like distant music in his ears. What boy has not had his imagination sent rioting by thinking of such things? A fine life, a clean life, a brave life, that of the sailor, with strange ports always lying ahead, and the sea, the vast sea always about one, bringing calm and storm, monotony and drama and adventure.
He slept that night the sleep of eager youth and dreamed rosy dreams of the things he should do some fine day when he came into his kingdom—that delectable world which lies before youth when it attains the age of manhood and emancipation, that bright, that chivalrous age of twenty-one.
Early the next morning he was roused by Ben's shout of "show a leg!" He tumbled out eagerly. Ben had already kindled a fire. He shoved his head above deck and saw the town wrapt in a morning mist, and on the waters of the harbour the dimly seen hulls of the ships.