Bill gave a groan.
“I don’t see how it could be, unless we go to the bottom,” Bill grumbled dismally. “You don’t think there’s any danger of that, Jack, do you?”
“Not a bit of it. This craft has weathered many a storm as bad or worse than this, I don’t doubt,” declared Jack stoutly, although the laboring of the storm-stricken Barley Rig was beginning to get on his nerves.
Not long after the completion of their scanty meal, the captain came below and snatched a bite. He was dripping from head to foot and reported the gale as increasing in violence.
“My advice to you younkers is to turn in,” he said. “You can have my bunk—that one yonder. I’ll be on deck all night and so will ’tother lads.”
The bunk in question was not much more than a shelf with some very dubious-looking blankets piled untidily on it. But the boys were tired, and so they clambered up and composed themselves to rest with the deck within a foot of their faces, so low was the cabin ceiling.
For a time sleep was impossible. The buffeting blows that the big waves struck the laboring trawler made her shake and creak as if she would go to pieces at any moment. On deck the heavy trampling of sea boots kept up without intermission. The smoky lamp swung drearily. The motion grew so violent at times that they were almost pitched out of the bunk. In some corner into which he had dragged himself, they could hear the old cook snoring and mumbling in his sleep.
But at last, despite all this, tired nature asserted herself and they dozed off, while outside, the storm howled and shrieked like a furious and sentient creature aroused to frenzy and extermination.