Now, however, instead of any accident happening, the good ship, although reeling with the blow like a drunken man, paid off from the wind handsomely—running on for some time before the gale and tearing through the water with everything flying, “as if old Nick were after her,” the men said!
All hands being then called again, the topsails and trysails were close-reefed, the courses furled, and the foretopmast-staysail set; when, the barque was brought round nearly to her course again, with the weather-braces hauled in a bit to ease her.
This was the first rough weather Fritz experienced, and it cannot be said to have increased his admiration for a sea life, all he saw of which only tended to make him wonder more and more every day what could induce his brother Eric to have such a passionate inclination towards it! It was a strange fancy, he thought, as he watched the disturbed state of the wild ocean, lashed into frenzy by the force of the gale, which seemed to wax more lusty each hour; for, the ship appeared to be, now, careering like a mad thing through some deep watery valley, between lofty mountainous peaks of spray, and, the next moment, seeming to be on the toppling edge of a fathomless abyss, into which she looked about to plunge headlong to destruction as she rose above the plane of tempest-tossed water, borne aloft on the rolling crest of one of the huge waves that were racing by each other as if in sport—the broken, billowy element boiling and seething as far as the eye could reach, in eddies of creamy foam and ridges of turbid green, with the clouds above of a leaden tinge that deepened, as they approached the horizon, to a dark slatish hue, becoming blue-black in the extreme distance.
“That Shakespeare was a fine fellow!” Fritz said to Captain Brown, who stood close by the binnacle, keeping an eye to the two men who were now at the wheel steering; for, the ship required careful handling in the heavy sea that was running to prevent her from broaching to, and it needed very prompt action frequently to jam down the helm in time, so as to let her fall off her course before some threatening mountain of water that bore down on her bows.
“Ha-ow?” ejaculated the skipper inquiringly, turning to the other, who was looking over the taffrail surveying the scene around and had spoken musingly—uttering his thoughts aloud.
“I mean Shakespeare, the great dramatist,” replied Fritz, who, like all educated Germans, had a keen appreciation of the bard and could quote his pregnant sayings at pleasure. “He wrote plays, you know,” he added, seeing that Captain Brown did not quite comprehend him.
“Oh, I rec’lect now,” replied the skipper, understanding him at last, and his face beaming with curious intelligence. “Him as wrote a piece called ‘Hamlet,’ hey? I reckon I see it once when I wer to Boston some years ago, an’ Booth acted it uncommon well, too, yes, sirree!”
“Well then,” said Fritz, going on to explain the reason for his original remark, “Shakespeare exactly expresses my sentiments, at this present moment, in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters in the ‘Tempest,’ Gonzalo, I think. ‘Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything: the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death!’”
The young fellow laughed as he ended the apt quotation.
The skipper, however, did not appear to see the matter in the same light.