The poor old fellow had been groaning all day with pain. “The weather is going to change,” he said; “I feel it in my bones.”.
All of a sudden it grew so black that one couldn’t even see to swear. Only the waves, as they rolled past the Provvidenza, shone like grinning teeth ready to devour her; and no one dared speak a word in presence of the sea, that moaned over all its waste of waters.
“I’ve an idea,” said ’Ntoni, suddenly, “that we had better give the fish we’ve caught to-day to the devil.”
“Silence!” said his grandfather; and the stern voice out of that darkness made him shrink together like a leaf on the bench where he sat.
They heard the wind whistle in the sails of the Provvidenza, and the ropes ring like the strings of a guitar. Suddenly the wind began to scream like the steam-engine when the train comes out from the tunnel in the mountain above Trezza, and there came a great wave from nobody knew where, and the Provvidenza rattled like a sack of nuts, and sprang up into the air and then rolled over.
“Down with the sail—down!” cried Padron ’Ntoni. “Cut away, cut away!”
’Ntoni, with the knife in his mouth, scrambled like a cat out on the yard, and standing on the very end to balance himself, hung over the howling waves that leaped up to swallow him.
“Hold on, hold on!” cried the old man to him, through all the thunder of the waves that strove to tear him down, and tossed about the Provvidenza and all that was inside her, and flung the boat on her side, so that the water was up to their knees. “Cut away, cut away!” called out the grandfather again.
“Sacrament!” exclaimed ’Ntoni; “and what shall we do without the sail, then?”
“Stop swearing; we are in the hands of God now.”