"I'll show you that I can make the old tub go," muttered Salvé between his teeth, affecting not to have heard what was said.
"Keep her away, Nils—she must have more way—and so over on a new tack," was his reply in a peremptory tone.
"Stand by to 'bout ship!"
Nils sighed: such sailing was quite indefensible; and there was not one of the crew who had not the same feeling.
Through the darkness and the blinding dash of the seas came then at intervals—
"Haul in the boom—hard a-lee—brace forward—brace aft!" and here there was a longer interval, for one of the ropes on the foremast had apparently got foul, and there was a difficulty in bracing the yard, the sail flapping with a dull noise above and making the whole mast tremble. One of the crew had to mount the old rigging at the risk of his life, and feel over the unsteady yard in the dark for the rope and disentangle it, with the white tops of the seas breaking not far under his feet.
"Sharp up aft—sharp forward!" came then again. "Haul the jib-sheet!" but no sooner was the jib hauled taut and made fast, than it broke loose and hung fluttering wildly about the stay until it gradually twisted itself up into a tangle.
The sails filled on the new tack; but they were not much better off than before, the sea breaking over them with such violence that the deck, from amidships forward, was only passable with the greatest difficulty and danger. The crew began to think the captain must have taken leave of his senses; and, in fact, Salvé was not himself that night. He was sailing in this reckless way in a mere fit of temper intensified by the consciousness of his own unreasonableness. Elizabeth made a mistake, he told himself by way of justification, if she thought that he on board his poor brig gave in to any officer in the navy, let him be who he might. She should see that he, too, was a man who could beat—he required no North Star under him, he would perform the same feat in a leaky old barge.
A couple of times when the cook, who looked after Elizabeth's wants, came up the cabin stairs, Salvé inquired how she was getting on, and heard each time that she was sitting up not yet undressed. The last time the good-natured cook had added—
"She wants badly to see you, captain—she isn't accustomed to this sort of thing."