At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away from her, the lateener would ’bout ship, and return to her moorings; but nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt, being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.
In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became “breathless” calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing the compass.
The cloud-bank meanwhile had been steadily rising, and at length it completely veiled the sky, obscuring first the stars, and finally the moon, and enveloping the whole face of nature in a mantle of inky blackness. So intense was this darkness that we lost sight of the guarda-costa, the land, and in fact everything save the two or three riding-lights which the more prudent of the skippers had chosen to display on board their craft in the roadstead.
A breathless hush prevailed, broken only by the loud creak of our boom and the flap of the sails. Giaccomo and his shipmate, or prisoner—whichever the reader likes—were somewhere forward, probably sitting down; but it was impossible to see them in the impenetrable darkness.
I called Giaccomo aft, and his voice, when he spoke in reply, sounded strange, weird, and unnatural. I considered the aspect of the sky portentous in the extreme, but I wished to have his opinion, as that of a man accustomed to the weather of that region, and I asked him what he thought of it.
“We shall have it down upon us very heavily before long,” he replied; “but I do not think it will last above three or four hours.”
“Then we had better bear a hand and shorten sail,” said I. “You take in the gaff-topsail, and bowse down a double reef in the mainsail, and I will in foresail and shift the jib. I suppose there is a storm-jib somewhere on board?”
“Down in the locker, forward,” said he. “Be careful to close the hatch securely when you come up, signor, or we shall be swamped in less than ten minutes; she will bury herself in the breeze that we are going to have.”
We all three worked like Trojans, and in a remarkably short space of time had the “Mouette”—as I found the cutter was named—under double-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the latter well in along the bowsprit, with topmast lowered as far as it would come, the fore-hatch and cabin skylight battened down, and everything made snug and ready for a regular stand-up fight with the elements.
While we were busy with these preparations, I admonished Giaccomo to keep a smart lookout, and I was careful also to do the same myself, in case the guarda-costa should endeavour to cut matters short by sending away a boat after us; but the man assured me that the skipper of the craft knew too well what he was about to risk the loss of a boat’s crew by sending them away under such threatening conditions of weather.