“Well, tell Seth to come, and Magnus.”
“Ho! ho!” said McBain, “that’s it, is it?”
“What a comfort on a night like this,” Allan remarked, “it is to be shipmates with two such fellows as Ray and Row, the epicure and the poet—the one to cater for the corporeal, the other for the mental man.”
The ship was pitching angrily, dipping her bows deep down under the solid seas and raising them quickly again, but not neglecting to ship tons of water every time, which found its way aft, so that down in the saloon they could hear it washing about overhead and pouring past the ports into the sea.
“Steady, sir, steady,” cried Magnus, entering the saloon. He was speaking to Seth, who had preceded him. He didn’t walk in, he came in head first, and was now lying all his length on the saloon floor.
But Rory and Allan lifted him tenderly up again and seated him on the couch, amid such remarks as, “No bones broken, I do hope,” “Gently does it, Seth, old man,” “Have you really left your sea-legs forward?” “Call the steward,” the last remark being the cockatoo’s.
“I reckon,” said the old trapper, rubbing his elbows and knees, “there ain’t any bones given way this time, but that same is more chance than good management.”
After supper—which was of Ralph’s own choosing, I need not say more—a general adjournment was made to the after-cabin, or snuggery, and here every one adopted attitudes of comfort around the blazing stove, in easy-chairs, on sofas, or on rugs and skins on the deck; there they sat, or lounged, or lay. The elders had their pipes, the youngsters coffee. But with the pitching and rolling of the ship it was not very easy either to sit, or lounge, or lie, nor was it advisable to leave the coffee in the cup for any length of time; nevertheless everybody was happy, for wondrous little care had they on their minds. Oh! how wild and tempestuous the night was, and how madly the seas leapt and tossed around them! But they had a ship they could trust, and, better by far, a Power above them which they had learned to put confidence in.
Seth, to-night, was in what Ralph called fine form. His stories of adventure, told in his dry, droll, inimitable way, were irresistible. De Vere’s face never once lacked a smile on it; he loved to listen though he could not talk.
Old Magnus also had some queer tales to tell, his relation of them affording Seth breathing space. Several times during the evening Rory played, and the doctor tooted, as he called it.