"Ah, poor fellows!" sighed the captain, "they have got a seaman's end! but they would have had the same fifty years hence; or else have been thrown into a hole on shore, which is worse than they now have got. A short life and a gallant one, is my maxim, my lord," he said, turning round and speaking to the earl. "Poor brave boys, Heaven give them a snug berth aloft! Well, lads, let us get a bit of sail on the craft, and cry afterward. My lad," he continued, addressing Meredith, "I see you are a sailor! You must take poor Marston's place, and wait till you get on shore for your commission. Go forward and set the jib at once. Here! a dozen of you close reef this spanker, and let us see how long it will take for the wind to cut it up into ribands. Lively, men, lively! Stand by there, at the helm, to bring her smartly up to the wind as soon as she begins to feel her canvass. Hoist away briskly!"
In a few minutes the yacht was lying to under a reefed jib and close-reefed spanker, with her helm lashed to the starboard bulwarks; the steersman, with the two men who had been detailed to assist him at the beginning of the storm, having been carried forward into the waste on the first billow that broke over the stern.
The force of the wind gradually lessened, and, in half an hour after the jib was set, an order was given to set the foresail, and shake the reefs out of the spanker.
"Put her away a point or two, and give her headway," said the captain to the lieutenant, as the above orders were executed. "So, steady! there she walks bravely! See, my lord, how like a duck she rides on the top of the waves. She's a tight boat for so gayly painted a craft, or we should, ere this, have been helping the mermaids string coral in their sea-caves below. Never judge a ship by the colour of her bends, is my maxim, my lord."
The yacht was now under steerage way, and rose regularly on the billows, which before had broken against her sides flinging the spray in showers upon her decks. The wind blew steadily, but no longer with violence; the storm-cloud, broken into a myriad of fragments, was scudding across the heavens towards the southeast; the waves momently diminished in size; and at intervals the moon shone down through an opening upon the sea, like the smile of hope beaming on the tempest-tossed mariners: all things indicated the termination of the hurricane, to the fury of which they had so nearly been sacrificed. The pumps were now tried, and it was ascertained that less than three inches of water had been made.
"A capital craft, my lord. The Roebuck would scarcely have ridden out a tornado like this, especially after having been laid on her ribs. I congratulate both your lordship and your niece on your escape from a grave in the sea, for which landsmen, I am told, have a strange antipathy. But bury me, my lord, in the deep sea; let the green waves, which have borne me living, wrap about me dead. Let me lie where the ripple of driving keels and the song of the sailor shall be my requiem."
"You are eloquent, Kenard; and perhaps you are right."
"It matters little where a man's bones are laid, my lord; and the sea is as safe a repository, and will yield them up as readily at the judgment day as the earth. Ay, more readily, it may be," said the captain.
"It may be so," replied the nobleman, smiling at the literal way in which the seaman viewed the subject. "If it is now safe to unclose the companion-way, I will convey my niece to the cabin for a change of wardrobe."
"We shall have no more washing decks to-night," replied the captain, giving the necessary orders to remove the companion-way and hatches, which had been firmly closed as the storm came on.