Hitherto the schooner had had fair weather, although the wind had been strong. But this afternoon the sky began to grow overcast and there was an ominous feeling in the air that betokened the coming of a storm. By supper time, in fact, the schooner was laboring along in a heavy sea and under much reduced canvas. But even the reefing which had been done was against Lake’s will. In her cabin they could hear his voice coming down through the skylight in angry argument with Zeb Hunt.
“By Chowder, it’s my way to clap on all she’ll carry.”
“But you’ll have the sticks out of her by sundown,” Zeb had protested.
“All right, then, shorten up if you want to. But not more than one reef in the main sail, mind yer. I’m a downeast sailorman, and we don’t b’lieve in sailing ships ter suit young ladies’ seminaries.”
By sundown the wind had developed into a screeching gale. Every timber and bolt in the schooner cried out and complained with a different voice. Under the heavy sail that Simon Lake obstinately insisted on carrying, she was being heavily racked.
From the way in which things in the cabin were tumbled about, the gale must have been terrific, but when Mr. Chillingworth tried to go on deck to see what sort of a night it was, he was met by a stern order from Simon Lake.
“Go back thar in ther cabin, Chillingworth,” he ordered. “The deck ain’t no place fer you ternight.”
Soon after, he came down and entered his cabin. He emerged in oilskins. Zeb Hunt followed his example. What, with the trampling of feet as the crew ran about the decks, the increasing motion of the ship, and the cruel uproar the creaking timbers kept up, there was no sleep for the castaways, and till long after the usual hour for going to their cabin they sat up. A certain amount of apprehension mingled with their other feelings. It is one thing to be upon deck, active and alert, in a big storm, and quite another pair of shoes to be confined in a stuffy cabin, not knowing what is happening above and whether at any moment you may not see green water come tumbling down the companionway.
Shortly before midnight the rancher and Tom Dacre turned in. But it was not to sleep. The storm was decidedly increasing in fury every minute. The little vessel seemed fairly to stand on its head one instant and the next to be rearing upward, pointing toward the stars.
What time it was Tom had no idea, but he figured afterward that it must have been about two hours after they turned in when he was awakened from a troubled doze by loud voices in the cabin outside, and a trampling of feet, as if several persons were there. Opening the door a crack, he peered out.