“Right in this boat, in one worse gale,” replied Halstead, thinking of the September northeaster experienced on the other side of Florida, as told in “The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless.”
“But Ah reckon ole Marse Satan didn’t gwine ride on dat gale,” protested Ham Mockus.
“Nor on this gale, either,” rasped Halstead, sharply.
“Den yo’ don’ know,” retorted the steward, with an air of conviction. “Yo’s all right, Marse Tom, but yo’ ain’t raised on dis west coast like Ah wuz.”
“Get below,” counseled Joe Dawson. “You’ll drown up here, Ham.”
For, by now, the decks were awash, and there was a threat that, at any moment, the great combers would be rolling fairly across the bulwarks. Dawson drove the black man below, forcing him to close the motor room hatch.
Five minutes later, however, the hatch opened again, and Oliver Dixon appeared in rain coat and cap.
“I thought you might need an extra hand up here,” volunteered Dixon, speaking in a loud voice to make himself heard over the howling gale. “So I told the ladies I’d come on deck for a while.”
“No, we don’t need anyone, thank you,” Tom shouted back at him. “We’ll soon be past Tortugas, and then we’ll be in open waters for hours to come.”