"Don't touch that theer! He come up in the net while you was below."
Then Joe looked at the face, and when he found he had been punching a dead man he was sick.
But under any ordinary circumstances you couldn't shake the man's nerve, and he was fit to go anywhere, and do anything so far as the sea was concerned.
The Esperanza got up to her consorts, and then the usual toilsome monotony of the fisherman's life began. At the end of a month Joe looked a pretty object, for he had not washed himself all the time, and his hair and beard were like rough felt matting. There isn't much time for washing in the winter, and the fellows often go for a couple of months without feeling any water, except from the seas that are shipped. After the month was over the men began to pick up heart, and they notched off the days on the beams with much enjoyment.
Joe was like most of the fishermen: he liked to talk to the gulls. You see, when you are knocking around for a couple of months, you soon tire of your own shipmates, and there is no one else to talk with. The sea mostly makes it awkward to put out a boat except for purely business purposes, and you gradually get into the way of taking delight in small things. Joe would go aft, and call, "Kittee, Kittee—come, Kittee!" Then with superb curves the lovely gulls swept round, and remained delicately poised over the stern. Joe flung pieces of fish into the air, and kept chatting volubly as his pets swooped and squabbled. "Go and tell them we're coming, Kittee, my prittee. Only twenty days more and round she goes. Tell them we're all well, you sluts, and you'll have plenty of fish when we run out again." The gulls are the fisherman's friends, and the men insist on crediting the beautiful, rapacious birds with an accurate knowledge of human affairs.
So the days flew by, and the time came when sugar—the seaman's luxury in winter—began to run short. That was enough to make the fellows sick for home, and they were ready to dance for joy when the gay flag was hoisted at last. Gaily the Esperanza rattled through the fleet, and envious men cried "What cheer!" in a doleful manner. After a twelve hours' run the wind fell away, and the sky began to look funny. Hoarse vague noises came over the sea, and it seemed as if certain sounds were growing weary and swooning away. Little breaths of air came softly—oh, so softly, and so deadly cold!—but the tiny puffs were hardly enough to send a feather far. The birds wailed a good deal, and when the ducks began to cry "Karm, kah-ah-arm," the men shouted, "Billee, run, Billee; or I'll bring the policeman!" for all the chaps hate to hear the ducks yawping.
Clouds of haze moved around, and when the moon came up she seemed to be glowering from her shroud. Joe was anxious to take in something, but the skipper said, "Don't think there'll be much of it. We can reef her when it comes away. I want to be home." All the night it seemed as though something evil were in the air, and even the men below were depressed. Sometimes it happens that if you work long in a lonely house, you find yourself at night living in dread of some vague ill, and every crack of the woodwork is like an ominous message. It is just that way at sea before a bad gale.
When Joe saw the moon beginning to paint the clouds with leprous hues, and the great ring grew wider and wider, he looked at the mainsail, and wished the trouble over. At midnight there came a sigh; then a rattle of blocks, and then a big, silent wave came pouring along. Something was astir somewhere, and before long the Esperanza's crew knew what was the matter. The last glare of wild-fire flushed the sky, and then down came the breeze. The Esperanza was as stiff as a house, but it made her lie over a little, and she roared along in fine style. In two hours the vessel was putting her lee rail nearly under, and a single sharp squall would have hove her down, so the hands were called up to reef her. Joe was out on the boom, getting the reef-earrings adrift, when the first of the chapter of accidents came. A man sang out, "Look out for a drop o' water!" and a black mountain smashed over the Esperanza in an instant after. Joe saw the third hand slip, and the next second the man was whisked overboard. The Esperanza was still smothered, and a stab of pity went through Joe's heart as he saw his shipmate wallowing. But he had no time for sentiment; he grabbed the reef-earring with his left hand, and clutched at the man with his right. When the vessel shook herself, both good fellows came inboard, and hung on panting. "No time to lose," said Joe; and indeed there wasn't. The spoondrift began to fly so that you could not see the moon, and the wind was enough to choke you if you faced it. I have heard Joe say that small shot couldn't have hit you very much harder than the drift when you looked to windward. Then the sea was growing worse every minute, until at last every man on board except the skipper wanted to let her ride. But the worthy captain said, "If she's got to be smothered, she'll be smothered moving. The nearer to home the nearer to help, and she shall go." So the Esperanza tore on throughout the awful night with all four of her reefs in, and it was a mercy, that she was never badly hit. At dawn the rushing hills of water were travelling like lightning. It was just as though some mighty power had set an Alpine district moving, and when a vessel soared over the crown of a grey mountain she looked like a mere seabird. In the valleys of this mad, winding mountain range the whistling hurricane raved and whirled, and the drift that was plucked looked like smoke from some hellish cauldron. And still the grizzled old skipper would go on, though it was touch-and-go every time a sequence of strong seas came howling down. The foresail went, and that was bad; but those fine seamen do not ever come to the end of their resources so long as life lasts, and they got ready to set another as soon as the wind showed the least sign of fining off. The Esperanza tore onward, lunging violently, and shaking as though she dreaded the grip of some savage pursuer. No wonder the seamen speak of a vessel as if she had intelligence; there is something so strangely vivid in the expression of a ship that it cannot be expressed in words, and I shall not try.
At length Joe sang out, "I reckon that's the Galloper, skipper."
"Right you are, chap! And what's that by the edge of the broken water? Wessel, I fancy."