Scholar followed, Michael came next. It was very dark. They went along on the windward side. All the cattle there had their broad fronts against the making-fast board, their heads over it. The men moved along, propped against the hoardings to leeward. The cattle on that side were standing well back, leaning against each other, tails against the backboards. As they manoeuvred forward a faint glow showed to starboard, which had nothing to do with the scattered lamps that, from the beams above, swung round and round in circles. One hatch (and only one) was still uncovered, and down that the shrieking and roaring song of the gale came. Mike poised along ahead like one walking on a steep roof. Up soared the Glory, and down she plunged, and over she rolled—farther over, trembling down. The cattle staggered; there was a sound of clicking horns, there were sounds of things going slide and crash all over, and still she rolled. She had a list on her beyond anything that Mike had ever known. He hung on with his right hand; he was under the hatch now, Scholar a pace or two behind, and both could look up at the dark sky overhead showing purple before the beginning of another day. It was then four o'clock. And as she hung over thus they watched the stars rush wildly up the sky like soaring rockets, up and over, and then up came the sea, following the soaring stars. It gave them pause. So far over did she hang that, from where they held tight upon the windward side, they could see clean through the hatch above, and over its lee edge, right out to the junction of sky and sea (a strip of awesome whiteness, or less whiteness than the colourless look of a glass of water) beyond an unforgettable tremendous tossing waste of a deep and velvety purple. And still she hung over, so that they saw more and more of the sea. It seemed to be rushing at them with all its great dark purple hollows, its purple hillsides, its snowy crests. And in that moment Scholar averted his eyes from it and looked toward Mike, and found Mike—hanging on—looking over his shoulder rearward. Their eyes met. And Scholar believed that perhaps Mike was right in his view of him that he had voiced the day before when the gale was rising—believed that when it came to the "bit" he would not be found wanting.
It seemed to be rushing at them with all its dark purple
hollows, its purple hillsides, its snowy crests.
Then the stars that had rushed up came rushing down again, bringing the sky with them, and it fitted over in place. The Glory rolled and pitched onward, still with something of a list, but no following roll sent her so far over, and from no succeeding roll was she so slow to rise again.
CHAPTER XV
A few of the pickpocket-faced ones hung back during the gale that morning, crawled into corners, effacing themselves, like sick cats. At the afternoon feeding and watering (despite the words of contempt, glances of contempt, and, worst of all, silences of contempt, bestowed upon them when they showed face at their own feeding-time) several did not turn out, pretended to do so—perhaps tried to do so—but slunk back to the cabin. When Rafferty, missing them, came aft to hunt them forth, they showed their peeked faces to him, worn and scared; and he despised them and left them, turned back to his working majority again and shouted through the shouting of the storm overhead, and the rushing of the draught along his deck: "There's some chickens, some chickens!" His men knew to whom he referred, looked at him—and sneered, and laughed, and tossed their heads in agreement; Jack even, whose attitude to Rafferty so far had been one of watchfulness, gave a kind of loud mutter of: "We don't want them with us, messing about here." Cockney too, energetic straw-boss, looked on them as did Rafferty.
"Let 'em lie there and shiver, then," he said.
Only two of the main deck men were perturbed beyond labour by the steadily increasing violence of the gale, scared by the consideration that it had begun to blow last night, and had been getting worse and worse ever since.