“Then I guess we’ll do as you say,” exclaimed the lady. “It’s the right thing to err on the safe side, and I won’t take any chances. But it will be bad for the men to have to work in this darkness. When does the moon rise?”
“She is due to rise at about eight forty-five to-night,” I said. “But I am afraid it will be useless for us to look for any help from her; we shall get no light from her to-night.”
“You think not?” she said. “Then—ah! there is four bells,” as Briscoe, having descended to the main-deck, came up on the poop and struck the bell. “Let the men get to work at once, Mr Kennedy, both watches, and see that Mr Leigh’s suggestions are carried out. And, say, I guess I won’t risk having the topsails blown away; we’ll furl everything while we’re about it; and if the hurricane comes we’ll heave to under bare poles. How will that do, Mr Leigh?”
“Admirably, madam,” I replied. “You will then have done everything possible to provide for the safety of the ship; and when the blow comes, as I feel sure it will, there will be no need to risk the lives of any of the crew.”
The necessary orders were at once given, and we all repaired to our several stations. My duty was to supervise operations on the mizenmast, Kennedy having charge of the men working upon the mainmast, and Briscoe supervising those upon the foremast, and when I went aft I found Miss Anthea and her brother seated in a couple of basket chairs by the taffrail. It was necessary for me to stand quite close to them for a few minutes; and I had no sooner taken up my position than I heard the boy say to his sister, in tones loud enough to reach my ears:
“Say, ’Thea, why does Momma pay so much attention to what the Britisher says? I guess I don’t like it—and I don’t like him, either. I am going to speak to her about it. Who is he, that he is to be consulted before Kennedy and Briscoe? They’re Amuricans, while he is only a Britisher, and they’ve been to sea longer than he has; and anyway, an Amurican is a darn sight better than a Britisher any day.”
“Yes, I guess you are right, Ju,” replied the young lady; “only you need not allow your dislike to betray you into vulgarity. I hate Englishmen, but I do not find it necessary to use the word ‘darn’, and I wish you wouldn’t; it is only common, vulgar people who use it. And I wouldn’t speak to Momma either, if I were you; it is not worth while. Momma thinks the man is clever, but, of course, he isn’t, and she will find it out sooner or later.”
So that was it! I had often wondered at the attitude of latent hostility of these two youngsters toward me; and now I understood. They hated Englishmen! Well, their hatred did not trouble me in the least; it was passive, or at all events was only so far active as to prompt them now and then to make offensive remarks in my hearing, and taking into consideration who and what they were, I could put up with a good deal of that. But it had the effect of putting me upon my mettle. I was determined to prove to them that they were mistaken in their estimate of Englishmen, not because I attached any value personally to their good or bad opinion, but because eventually they would be man and woman, if they lived, and, from the position which their wealth would give them, would have the power of influencing the opinion of their fellow countrymen to a certain limited extent. I felt that it was my duty to do what I could to lessen the unreasoning dislike of my fellow countrymen which I had noticed in so many Americans.
It was at this time a dead calm, with a very heavy, confused swell running, so that the only sounds heard, apart from our own voices, were the wash and gurgle of the water alongside, as the ship wallowed uneasily, the loud rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, and the creaking of the spars. Moreover, it was intensely dark—to such an extent indeed that I found it impossible to superintend operations from the deck. Presently, therefore, I sprang into the mizen rigging and made my way aloft to the mizen topmast crosstrees, from which I directed the operation of sending down the royal and topgallant yards, and afterwards took a hand in sending down the topgallant mast, having the satisfaction of finding, when I returned to the deck, that we on the mizenmast had beaten both Briscoe and Kennedy. I reckoned that, on board a well-disciplined, old-fashioned British man-o’-war, the task of sending down royal and topgallant yards and masts and stowing all canvas would have been accomplished, under similar circumstances, in about twelve minutes, at the utmost; but it took us thirty-five minutes by the ship’s clock. This I thought not at all bad, however; for in the first place we were nothing like so heavily manned as a man-o’-war of our size would have been, nor had our hands the constant practice in such evolutions that a frigate’s crew would have had. But the main thing was that our lady skipper was satisfied, and was good enough to say so.
It remained intensely dark until close upon ten o’clock that night, when the thinnest imaginable suggestion of moonlight came filtering weakly through the dense curtain of cloud that now overspread the heavens, just enough of it to enable us to see objects close at hand and avoid hurting ourselves by running foul of them, as we had been doing while moving about the decks. The weather still remained stark calm, and the ship was rolling so furiously that I should not have been at all surprised to see the masts go over the side at any moment. The gear was all good and new, however, and held bravely; but the motion was so intensely disagreeable, and we shipped so much water over both rails, flooding the main-deck and necessitating the battening down of the hatches, that at length Mrs Vansittart gave orders to start the engine, and the ship was then put stem-on to the swell, which had now become more regular, setting out from about North-North-East. This action brought us immediate relief, as it enabled the helmsman to keep the ship out of the trough, though the violent rolling was exchanged for almost as violent a pitching. But the thunderstorm which Briscoe still persistently maintained was coming, failed to eventuate; and hour after hour dragged away with no indication of any immediate change, save that the feeble glimmer of moonlight, instead of increasing, gradually died away again, leaving us in almost as bad a plight as before.