By dark we had four good fish in, and all hands were pleased. The cook, before he turned in for the night, told us more about his blueberry patch. The skipper came below and broke in on the cook to talk about the weather. "A sea the same's if there was gasolene poured over it," said the skipper. "A clear sky, but a swell and near the horizon at sunset clouds piled up with gashes of green and purple and a hundred other shades. Wind there—plenty of it—we'll see to-morrow."
To-morrow came, but no breeze. The skipper felt put out. "I'd 'a' bet it," he said.
That night came an ugly sunset. No oily sea this time, but a gray tossing and murmuring, and showing behind among the clouds, long deep-red streaks paralleling the horizon, and the horizon lifting up and down like it had something the matter with it, too.
Next morning nothing, or no more than what Shorty said when he came down from his watch at eight o'clock. "Just a good liver shaker aloft," said Shorty.
Just before ten o'clock came a stirring out of the sea; but nothing much. Another stirring and the skipper took a good look around, and then came in from the pulpit. He called out to us to come from the masthead. We came, and took sail off her—all but her foresail. No word was given to hurry, but there was no loafing over it. Oliver, a great fellow to keep looking clean, said he guessed he'd take a chance to shave himself; and then he took another look around at sea and sky, and then he said he guessed he'd wait awhile.
While a man would be drawing on a pair of rubber-boots it came—oh, whistling! And four hours of it followed. Wind to blow a man's ears off. And rain! Oh, rain! Not rain in sheets—nothing so soft and easy as that; but rain which came driving in like a billion bullets at once. We could pick out where every one hit us. The wind blew maybe eighty miles an hour for four hours. And then the real thing came. For an hour or so more wind really blew. How many miles? Lord knows. John said a good hundred miles. Bill snorted: "A hunderd? Take on'y what's above a hunderd an' you'd git a gale by itself!"
With all the wind there was a high-running sea; and wind and sea together were driving us into shoal water. And the shoal water of Georges is bad—no worse anywhere. We sounded and got ten fathoms. Bad. There was nothing but to make a little more sail and get out. Put jumbo and trysail to her, was the word; as we started to do that a forepeak block came away, and the halyards and block got fouled with the jib-stay aloft. The skipper sent John and me aloft to clear it.
We went; and were lying out to get it, when we saw this sea come at us. It was a white yeast all around the vessel, but this one was a solid white, solid as marble almost. It came roaring like a mad bull at us. I took one peek at it and "Hang on, John!" I yelled. I did my best to leave the print of my fingers on the steel stay with the way I hung on myself—we were both of us to the masthead and that sea was just high enough to roll over our heads. I could just see a light-green color over my head as it passed.
As we stuck our heads through and looked at each other, John was saying something. There was a ringing in my ears. I asked him: "What? What did you say, John?"
"You told me to hang on," said John. "To hang on! Lard Gard, boy, did y' think I was goin' to dive into it?"