“I do not really see why it should not,” persisted Mr Meldrum, “it has already veered about a good deal this morning; and, if you remember, both yesterday afternoon and on the previous day it shifted shortly after sunset to that very direction.”
“Yes, I recollect,” said the other with grim humour, “and the shift brought a snowstorm and a fog with it on each occasion! I hope, really, with all my heart, Mr Meldrum,” he added more heartily, “that the weather may be as accommodating as you seem to fancy; but, as a matter of precaution, I will go and see that the boats may be ready, in case we have to abandon the ship soon, which I think will be the end of it all. They are both patched up now, so as to be pretty serviceable; and fortunately, there’ll be no difficulty in getting them over the side, as the bulwarks have been swept away, and all we’ll have to do will be to launch them into the water. I am just going to superintend the stowage of the provisions and water casks. They are piled on the main-deck quite handy; and I will see, too, that the oars and sails are not forgotten.”
“Very good,” answered Mr Meldrum. “But I hope we sha’n’t want them after all; and, while you are down there, I’ll remain here and look after the pilotage of the ship—that is, if you’ll send some one below in my place to see to my daughters and their arrangements. I have told Kate already that she must only take the barest necessaries with her, in case we have to embark in the boats, and above all, not to forget warm clothing for herself and Florry; so you’d better advise whoever you send down, to see that Mrs Major Negus does the same. Mr Lathrope is smart enough to look after himself.”
“Aye, aye,” said Captain Dinks, as he turned to descend to the main-deck, “I think I’ll send down Frank Harness. He’s the most of a ladies’ man on board the ship, and I imagine that he and Miss Kate will get on pretty well together, eh, Mr Meldrum?”
But the other made no reply to this remark. He was too busily engaged just then in looking out across the rolling sea astern, and watching a haze which appeared to be creeping up over the water to the northward, with a dark line of cloud hovering over it, both coming rapidly towards the ship.
“Hurrah!” he exclaimed at last in an ecstasy of joy, when his faint hope became confirmed into a certainty; “the wind’s shifting, and chopping round to the north in our favour!”
“You don’t say so?” said Captain Dinks equally excited, abandoning the provisioning of the boats and skipping up the poop-ladder like a young two-year-old; “why, yes, really! It’s the best piece of news I ever heard! Put the helm amidships!” he added to the man at the wheel. “We’ll have to ease her round and run before it a bit for the last time; and if the wind only holds to the northward for a short spell, we’ll get round the point yet and lay her old bones ashore decently. Steady, Boltrope, steady!”
“Steady it is!” laconically answered the carpenter, whose trick it was at the wheel, obeying the captain’s directions implicitly.
“Look alive, McCarthy, and square the yards,” was the captain’s next command; “but do it gingerly, my man, do it gingerly! If we lose the jury-masts now it will be all up with us.”
“Aye, aye, sorr,” was the response of the chief mate, as he aided himself in carrying out the order; and the vessel’s head coming round south by west, under the impulse of the helm and the shifting of the sails, she began to exhibit some of her old powers and claw off the land, bringing the cape now to bear upon her port bow well to leeward.