The skipper grinned and gave a hasty glance to windward. “By Gorry, boys, there’s a black squall acomin’,” he bawled quickly. “Jump an’ haul daown yer balloon an’ stays’l or th’ sticks’ll go. Look sharp!” The men raced to obey the command; halliards were cast off; downhauls manned, and as the canvas was dragged from aloft, bellying and flapping thunderously, the squall struck the vessel as the skipper eased the helm down.
The West Wind seemed to stagger to its onslaught and rolled over until the sea rose to the lee-side of the cabin house and frothed over the coamings of the main-hatch. Donald, at the stays’l downhaul, thought she was going to capsize, and one of the men yelled in fright, “God save us! She’s goin’ over—she’s goin’ over! Cut yer dory gripes! Cut yer dory gripes!” Two men reached for bait-knives and began to hack at the stout ropes that lashed the weather nest of dories, when the skipper roared menacingly, “Leave them gaul-derned gripes alone, you crazy lunk-heads! She’s all right, I’m tellin’ ye! ’Tis only a puff!”
“Only a puff?” growled a fisherman. “Only a puff? Another like that one and there’ll be a drowndin’ scrape araound here—” He stopped and yelled, “For th’ roarin’ ol’ Judas! Look at him! He’s swingin’ her off! He’s swingin’ her off!” Nickerson was spoking the helm up, and Donald hung on to the main-rigging in time to save himself from flying over the lee rail when she careened to the weight of the wind. “This is th’ perishin’ worst I ever saw in sail-draggin’!” remarked someone huskily. “Does that bucko at th’ wheel there think he’s sailin’ th’ Flyin’ Cloud ’round Cape Horn? Ef he don’t strip her or lift th’ spars out the ol’ hooker yet, I’m a Dutchman!”
The least concerned in the crowd was Nickerson. Cool and calm, with a truculent look on his stern face, he strained at the spokes with just the suspicion of a grin on his lips. With his bronzed face streaming water and his mustache dripping, he glanced into compass and up at the straining sails and gear with exultant eyes. “Good iron! Good timber!” he murmured, and broke into the words of an old chantey—
“Blow, winds, blow!
To Cal-i-for-ni-o!
There’s plenty of gold, so I’ve been told,
On the banks of Sacramento!”
The man seemed to be carried away with the thrill of it—this wild, roaring, hurling through the water, and Donald gazed on vessel and steersman with shining, worshipping eyes. Here was a man—a marine Ajax defying the wind and sea!