On this particular morning, saving a few fleecy cloudlets that lay along the southern horizon, there was no cloud to be seen in all the blue sky, and the sun shone warmly down on the snowy canvas and white decks of the Snowbird, as she coquetted over the rippling sea. The men, dressed in their neatest suits, were assembled aft on the quarter-deck, near the binnacle, so that even the man at the wheel could join in the beautiful Form of Prayer to be used at Sea, read by McBain in rich and manly tones. Had you climbed into the maintop of that yacht, that white speck on the ocean’s blue, and gazed around you on every side, you would have scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of a single living thing. They were indeed alone on the wide ocean. Alone, yet not alone, for One was with them to whom they were now appealing. “One terrible in all His works of wonder, at whose command the winds do blow, and who stilleth the raging of the tempest.”
Prayers over, Ap pipes down, the men move forward to read or to talk, and by-and-bye it will be the dinner-hour; this is “plum-dough” day, and, mind you, sailors are just like schoolboys, they think about this sort of thing. Oscar, the Saint. Bernard, has mounted on top of the skylight—his favourite resting-place in fine weather—and laid himself down to sleep in dog fashion, with one eye a little open, and one ear on half-cock to catch the faintest unusual sound.
“Do you know,” said Ralph, looking over the bulwarks and down at the gliding water, “I think I should like to live at sea.”
“Ay, ay,” said Rory, “if it was always like this, O! thou fair-weather sailor, but when we’re lying-to in a gale of wind, Ralph, that is the time I like to see you, fast in your armchair, with the long legs of you against the bulkheads to steady yourself, and trying in vain to swallow a cup of tea. Oh! then is the time you look so pleasant.”
Ralph looked at this teasing shipmate of his for a moment or two with a kind of amused smile on his handsome face, then he pulled his ear for him and walked away aft.
About five days after this Rory came on deck; he had been talking to Captain McBain in his cabin. The captain was working out the reckoning, during which I don’t think Rory helped him very much.
“Well, Rory,” said Allan, “you’ve been plaguing the life out of poor McBain, I know. But tell us the news—where are we?”
“Indeed,” said Rory, with pretended gravity, “we’re in a queer place altogether, and I don’t know that ever we’ll get out of it.”
“Out of what?” cried Ralph; “speak out, man—anything gone wrong?”
“Indeed then,” replied Rory, “there has been a collision.”