“What manner of men are these English that they make such a trouble about a little time? Mother of Heaven! why are they always in a hurry? Is not to-morrow as good as to-day—and better?”
That evening we dined together upon deck; for neither of us were in any good mood to descend to the cabin and meet Don José Moreno, of whom we had seen nothing since the previous night. As we were finishing our meal the light faded and the sky grew curiously dark, while suddenly to the north there appeared a rim of cloud similar to that which we had seen upon the horizon at dawn, but now it was of an angry red and glowed like the smoke from a smelting-furnace at night.
“The sky looks very strange, Ignatio,” said the señor to me, and at that moment we heard Molas and an Indian sailor speaking together in brief words.
“El Norte,” said Molas, pointing towards the red rim of light.
“Si, el Norte,” answered the sailor as he went towards the cabin.
Presently the captain hurried up the companion-ladder and studied the horizon, of which the aspect seemed to frighten him. In another minute the mate joined him, appearing from the engine hatch, and the two of them began to converse, or rather to dispute. I was sitting near, unobserved in the darkness, and, so far as I could gather, the mate was in favour of putting the ship about and running for Frontera, from which port we were now distant some forty miles.
On the other hand, the captain said that if they did so and the norther came up, it would catch them before they got there, and wreck them upon the bar of the Grijalva river; but he added that he did not believe there would be any norther, and if by ill-luck it should come, their best course was to stand for the open sea and ride it out.
The mate answered that this would be an excellent plan if the ship were staunch and the engines to be relied on, but he declared loudly that they might as well try to sail a boat with a mast made of cigarettes, as attempt to lie head on to a norther with leaking boilers, worn-out engines, and a strained paddle-wheel.
After this the discussion grew fierce, and as full of oaths as a shark’s mouth with teeth, but in the end the two sailors determined that their safest plan would be to hold on their present course, and, if necessary, round Point Xicalango and take shelter behind Carmen Island, or, if they could, in the mouth of the Usumacinto river. Then they parted, the captain adjuring the mate to say nothing of the state of the weather to the passengers, and above all to that accursed Englishman, who had called this misfortune upon them because he was not put off at Frontera, and whose evil eye brought bad luck.
Another two hours passed without much change, except that the night grew darker and darker, and stiller and yet more still. The Señor Strickland, who had been walking up and down the deck smoking a cigar, came and sat beside me on a coil of rope, and asked me if I thought the norther was coming.