The horizon was piled up with masses of blue-black clouds, whose ragged edges meant mischief, and scraps of greyish white scud were flying across the sky in all directions—now towards the same point as the wind, now against it, as if there were contending currents aloft and they could not decide what precise course to travel.
Captain Dinks, who, with the other officers, had been on deck all night, looked haggard and care-worn. The men, too, seemed worn-out, which could not be wondered at, as no sooner had the watch whose turn it was to be relieved, got below than they were roused up again at the call of “All hands”—when, of course, they had to tumble on deck again, without a moment’s time for the rest and repose they needed after the exposure they were subjected to in battling up and down the rigging in the tempest of wind and rain and hail that had lasted through the livelong night.
“Not a very bright look-out!” said the captain, trying to speak cheerily, but failing miserably in the attempt. “Old Boreas, too, I’m afraid, is going to put on a fresh hand to the bellows, for the barometer has fallen again.”
“Indeed?” answered Mr Meldrum.
“Yes,” continued Captain Dinks; “it stood at 29.50 at three o’clock this morning, and when I looked just now it was at 29.25.”
“That’s bad,” said the other; “it shows we’ve not got the worst of the cyclone yet.”
“No,” replied the captain; “we’ve got that all to come! Luckily, I sent down the topgallant-masts yesterday evening, or we’d have had every stick out of her by now:— they would have been safe to go when the foretop-mast went, if not before. However, there they are, all lashed together by the longboat, not gone yet; and I hope we shall have some use for them yet bye and bye.”
“I only hope so,” said Mr Meldrum sadly, the despondent way in which Captain Dinks spoke affecting him too.
The ship seemed easier running before the wind than when lying-to, although there was the risk of the heavy following seas pooping her, a contingency that had already happened when a portion of the bulwarks were carried away at the time the saloon skylight was smashed, leaving an ugly gash in the ship’s side; but a spare hawser had been triced up and secured fore and aft to prevent the men being washed overboard through the aperture, and life lines were rove and passed along the deck for the same purpose.
“It’s safer to carry on,” observed Captain Dinks, seeing the anxious glance Mr Meldrum bent to windward. “I’ve heard of a ship outrunning a hurricane before; and so might we again.”