The thunder now went rolling down to leeward, and the rain ceased, but the gale increased in force, and in a short time she had to be eased again, and now she was scudding along almost under bare poles. It would be hours before mate Tandy could get below; but Ransey’s watch was now off deck, so he went down to ask Janeira, the stewardess, if Nelda was in bed.
She was in bed most certainly, but through the half-open doorway she could hear Ransey’s voice, and shouted to him.
“I fink, sah,” Janeira said, “she am just one leetle bit afraid.”
There was no doubt about that, and the questions with which she plied her brother, when he took a seat by her bunk to comfort her, were peculiar, to say the least.
“Daddy won’t be down for a long, long time?”—that was one.
“The poor men, though, how many is drownded?”—another.
“The ship did go to the bottom though, didn’t it, ’cause I heard the water all rush down?”—a third.
“You are quite, quite sure father isn’t drownded? And you are sure no awful beasts have come up with long arms? Well, tell us some stories.”
Nolens volens, Ransey had to. But Babs got drowsy at last, the white eyelids drooped and drooped till they finally closed; then Ransey went quietly away and turned into his hammock.
Young though he was, the heaviest sea-way could not frighten him, nor the stormiest wind that could blow. The sound of the wind as it went roaring through the rigging could only make him drowsy, and the ship herself would rock him to sleep. The barque was snug, too, and it was happiness itself to hear his father’s footsteps, as he walked the quarterdeck, pausing now and then to give an order to the men at the wheel.