Soon after the captain came below, looking, in his wet and shining oilskins, like some curious sea-monster, for there was hardly a bit of his face to be seen. “What!” he cried, “you boys all up?”
“Indeed,” said Rory, who was nearly always the first to speak, “we thought it was down we soon would all be instead of up?”
The captain laughed, and applied himself with rare zest to the coffee and sandwiches the steward placed before him. “Don’t give us cups at breakfast to-morrow, Peter,” he said, “but the tin mugs; we’re going to have some days of this weather. And now, boys, I’m going to have a caulk for an hour. You had better follow my example; you will be drier in bed, and, I believe, warmer too.”
Breakfast next day was far from a comfortable meal. The gale still continued, though to a far less extent, and the fire in the galley had been drowned out the night before, and was not yet re-lit. But every one was cheerful.
“Better,” said McBain, “is a cold sardine and a bit of ship biscuit where love is, than roast beef and—”
“Roast beef and botheration!” said Rory, helping him out.
“That’s it! Thank ye,” said McBain. “And now, who is going on deck to have a look at the sea?”
“Ha! what a scene is here!” said Allan, looking around him, as he clung to the weather rail.
Well might he quote Walter Scott. The green seas were higher than the maintop, their foaming, curling tops threatening to engulf the yacht every minute.
“I may tell you, my boys,” said McBain, grasping a stay and swaying to and fro like a drunken man, “that if the Snowbird weren’t the best little ship that ever floated, she couldn’t have stood the storm of last night. And look yonder, that is all the damage.”