"How's the wind?" he roared.
"North-east," said the skipper.
They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard only made Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him by thrusting him towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck.
"It's hauled round," said the skipper, "the wrong way."
Wyllard made a savage gesture. "We've had it from the last quarter we wanted ever since we sailed, and we sailed nearly three months too late. We're too close in to the beach for you to heave her to?"
"A sure thing," said the other. "I was driving her to work off it with the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right under, and we had to let go most everything before she'd pick it up. She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack just now, but I can't stand on."
This was evident to Wyllard, and he closed one hand tight. He wanted to stand on as long as possible before the ice closed in, but he realised that to do so would put the schooner ashore.
"Well?" he said sharply.
Dampier made a grimace. "I'm going out to heave her round. If we'd any sense in us we'd square off the boom then, and leg it away across the Pacific for Vancouver."
"In that case," said Wyllard, "somebody would lose his bonus."