It was a telling argument, and although two or three of the foretopmen, smart young fellows, whose sweethearts had not yet taken to drinking, seemed disinclined to side with Slap-Jack, it insured a triumphant majority, which ought to have set the question at rest, even without the conclusive opinion delivered by the negro.
“Snowball,” said Bottle-Jack, “you’ve not told us your taste. Now you’re impartial, you are, a-cause you can’t belong to either side. What say ye, man? Red or white? Sing out and hoist your ensign!”
The black nodded, grinned, and voted—
“Iss! berry well,” said he; “I like ’em white berry well; like ’em red berry better!”
At this interesting juncture the men were a good deal surprised by an order from the Captain to “turn all hands up and shorten sail.” They rose from the deck, wondering and grumbling. Two or three, who had been sleeping below, came tumbling up with astonished faces and less willing steps than usual. All seemed more or less discontented, and muttered to each other that “the skipper must be mad to shorten sail at midnight with a bright moon, and in a light breeze, falling every moment to a calm!”
They went about the job somewhat unwillingly, and indeed were so much less ready than usual as to draw a good deal of animadversion from the deck. Something in this style—
“Now, my lads, bear a hand, and look smart. Foretop there! What are you about with that foretopsail? Lower away on your after-haulyards! Easy! Hoist on those forehaulyards, ye lubbers! Away with it, men! Altogether, and with a will! Why, you are going to sleep over it! I’d have done it smarter with the crew of a collier!”
To all such remonstrances, it is needless to say, the well-disciplined Slap-Jack made no reply; only once, finding a moment to look to windward from his elevated position as captain of the foretop, and observing a white mist-like scud low down on the horizon, he whispered quietly to his mate, then busied himself with a reef-knot—
“Blowed if he bain’t right, arter all, Jem! We’ll be under courses afore the sun’s up. If we don’t strike topmasts, they’ll be struck for us, I shouldn’t wonder. I see him once afore,” explained Slap-Jack, jerking his head in the direction of the coming squall; “and he’s a snorter, mate, that’s about wot he is!”
The Captain’s precautions were not taken too soon. The topsails were hardly close reefed, all the canvas not absolutely required to steer the brigantine had been hardly taken in, ere the sky was darkened as if the moon had been suddenly snuffed out, and the squall was upon them. ‘The Bashful Maid’ lay over, gunwale under, driving fiercely through the seething water, which had not yet risen to the heavy sea that was too surely coming. She plunged, she dived, she strained, she quivered like some living thing striving earnestly and patiently for its life. The rain hissed down in sheets, the lightning lit up the slippery deck, the dripping pale-faced men, the bending spars, the straining tackle, and the few feet of canvas that must be carried at any price. In the quick-succeeding flashes every man on board could see that the others did their duty. From the Captain, holding on by one hand, composed and cheerful, with his speaking-trumpet in the other, to the ship’s boy, with his little bare feet and curling yellow hair, there was not a skulker amongst them! They remembered it long afterwards with honest pride, and ‘The Bashful Maid’ behaved beautifully! Yes, in defiance of the tempestuous squall, blowing as it seemed from all points of the compass at once; in defiance of crackling lightning, and thunder crashing overhead ere it rolled away all round the horizon, reverberating over the ocean for miles; in defiance of black darkness and lurid gleams, and drenching rain, and the cruel raging sea rising every moment and running like a mill-race, Captain and crew were alike confident they would weather it. And they did.