The easterly gale that started did not last, for the wind came out of the west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly hard. This meant that the Selache’s course was all to windward, and though they drove her unmercifully under reefed book-foresail, main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her, she had made little headway when each arduous day was done. They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailors. The little crew was often aroused in the blackness of the night to haul down a burst jib, to get in another reef, or to crawl out on a plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas as the schooner lay with her lee rail under. Glad as they were of the respite it was even more trying to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth waves that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in the vessel banged to and fro. When the breeze came screaming through the fog or rain they sprang to make sail again.
Fate seemed to oppose them, as it was certain that, if their purpose was suspected, the hand of every white man whom they might come across would be against them. But they held on over leagues of empty ocean.
The season wore away, and at last the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big gray combers curling as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and, finding shells and shoal water, went aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of Dunton’s chart.
Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood by the wheel. His face was tanned and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-gray sea opened beyond them, beneath the dripping jibs. The Selache was carrying sail, and lurching over the steep swell at some four knots an hour.
Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard’s oilskins.
“You’ll have to take them off. It’s stuffed boots and those Indian seal-gut things or furs from now on,” he said. “That leather cuff’s chewing up your hand.”
“We’ll cut that out,” replied Wyllard; “it’s not to the point. Can’t you get on?”
Dampier grinned. “We’re on soundings, and they and Dunton’s longitude ’most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two days. Next question is, where were those men?”
“Where are they?” corrected Wyllard.
“If they’ve pushed on it’s probably a different thing, though, if they’d food yonder, I don’t quite see why they’d want to push on anywhere. It wouldn’t be south, anyway. They’d run up against the Russians there.”