For once I was adamant. I explained that if we were to be detained here by any accident with our slender supply of fuel and provision, things might be very awkward. I showed how necessary it was for a man in my position to be in touch with his lawyer every few months. I reiterated my assurance that we should return, using every oath and affirmation that I thought convincing. But it was a sorrow-stricken face that the poor little man hung over the stern the next morning as we turned our prow northwards, and the cliffs drew down into the veil of the haze.
Gerry had at first shown unbounded astonishment at this sudden change of plan, but during my discussion with the Professor a light seemed to strike him. He retired to the saloon, and through the skylight I saw him consulting a manuscript note or two which I could have sworn were in a feminine hand. He came on deck with an unclouded brow.
“To-day’s the 29th, isn’t it?” he queried cheerily. Then turning to Waller he demanded, “How long shall we take to steam to Port Lewis, captain?”
“About a week, sir,” responded that functionary readily, and my young friend faced me with a grin splitting his ingenuous countenance.
“You old humbug,” he chuckled. “Coal indeed; provisions running short, are they? Go on,” and on we went.
CHAPTER VII
A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
I received Gerry’s more explicit congratulations in private. The poor little Professor continued to bemoan our desertion of the quest with such heart-breaking insistence, that the merest suspicion that it was no stern necessity that bade us sail north would, we felt sure, induce paroxysms of fury. We cheered him to the best of our ability, by picturing our early return refreshed for deeds of high emprise in rock climbing, and with perfected means for their accomplishment. But he continued to bewail himself.
It was about six days after we had turned our backs upon the great rock wall, that the wind began to get up strongly from the north, and we had to thrust our way slowly enough through the great surges that rolled down upon us mercilessly from the Atlantic, with four thousand miles of gathered impact at their back.
Our good little boat cleft her way through their white manes with a sturdy shove and shake of her prow, sending the spray swinging in jets before her cutwater, and flooding her decks as she dipped to the rollers and sent them roaring down beneath the bridge.
Two men had to be lashed to the wheel, and the crew took their stations between watch and watch, only by the activity with which they dodged the incoming billows. Two of our boats were swept from the davits, and half the deck-house windows were smashed before we got them battened over. The cook kept a fire in the galley by the display of the most extraordinary agility, and our meals were snappy and disconnected. Nor did we take much pleasure in them. Gerry and I had found our sealegs to a certain extent, but poor little Lessaution was a terrible sufferer, and we found it hard to take a neighborly interest in his behavior—he would insist in coming on deck, though he had to be lashed there—and afterwards find appetite for the cook’s hastily improvised dainties.