The sea had changed with the rising of the wind, and in place of the long, slow rollers, sharp, spiteful waves shot their crests high over the yacht’s bridge, and with the driving rain which was falling made the decks uncomfortable, even dangerous. I recoiled from the dark, the wind and the rain.
A gust of wind and a slanting deck swept me off my feet and sent me slithering on my knees, gasping for breath, into the scuppers. I grew angry. My anger was with myself. I was timid, and I was weak; and, so, moved probably by some inherited streak of stubbornness, I forced myself to my feet, forced my face to meet the wind and rain without flinching, and so forced myself, much against a portion of my will, to remain outside, with the warmth and comfort of the cabin only a step away.
The storm grew worse. A life-boat on the port side was torn loose from a davit and swung noisily along the side. Through the brawl of the storm Wilson’s voice rang out sternly, there was a rush of feet on the deck and suddenly men were swinging the boat back to its place, making it fast, while the wind and waves snatched at them hungrily. Then the decks were empty again.
The wind strove to force me back to the cabin, and with a new stubbornness I refused to go. It was boyish, it was silly, but the harder the wind blew, the more the spray drenched me, the more determined I was to remain. I began to glow with the struggle.
New and strange sensations came and went. I felt an inexplicable desire to shout back at the storm. For the first time in years I was thrilled by the impulse of a physical contest, and I fought my way to the bow and stood spread-legged, leaning forward against the wave-crests which drenched me. Then I went leisurely aft, hanging onto the rail, denying the wind the right to hurry me. And in the noise and darkness I all but walked squarely into Captain Brack and Riordan.
They were standing in the lee of the engineer’s cabin. I did not see them, for I was moving by hand-holds along the cabin wall when, in a lull of the storm, I heard their voices and stopped.
“You got a bad one, sir, when you picked Larson,” Riordan was saying.
“Larson?” repeated Brack, as if trying to place the name. “Oh, the young hand from the Sound boat? What’s wrong with him?”
“He knows Madigan.”
“——!” said Brack. “Is he the only one?”