“There, you wouldn’t do that, my lad,” said the man. “If we did have to put back, I should say the skipper would run for Penzance. But there, the wind hasn’t chopped round yet, and it’s just as likely to fall as it gets dark and we will get our orders to hoist more sail.”
But the sailor’s first ideas proved to be right, and not only did the wind veer round, but it increased in force and became so contrary and shifty that during the night it began to blow a perfect hurricane, and gave Captain Chubb a good opportunity of proving that he was no fine-weather sailor.
It proved to be a bright night, being nearly full moon, with great flocculent silvery and black clouds scudding at a tremendous rate across the planet, while one minute the schooner’s rigging was shadowed in black upon the white, wet deck, at another all was gloom, with the wind shrieking through the rigging, and the Maid of Salcombe proving the truth of the sailor’s words, as she was literally dancing about; like a cork.
“Hadn’t you better come below, Rodd?” said the doctor.
“No, uncle; don’t ask me. I couldn’t sleep, and I want to look at the storm. It’s so grand.”
“Grand? Well, yes,” said the doctor; “but we could have dispensed with its grandeur, and it seems very unlucky that after all these weeks of glorious weather it should have turned like this. Ah, here’s Captain Chubb. Well, captain,” he continued, “where are we making for? Mount’s Bay?”
“No. Give it up. Nasty rocky bit about there, so I laid her head for Plymouth; but we shan’t get in there to-night.”
“Where then?” asked the doctor. “Wouldn’t it be better to run for the open sea?”
“No,” said the skipper shortly. “This wind’s come to stay, and we must get into port for a bit. We don’t want to get into the Bay of Biscay O with weather like this. It’s going to be a regular sou’-wester.”
“What port shall we make for, then?” asked the doctor, while Rodd caught all he could of the conversation, as the wind kept coming in gusts and seemed to snatch the words and carry them overboard in an instant. “Havre,” grunted the captain laconically. There was silence for some time, for it became too hard work to talk, but in one of the intervals between two gusts, a few words were spoken, the doctor asking the skipper if he was satisfied with the behaviour of the schooner.