“No,” replied the old cook, scornfully; “zis only one-a lit Georgy shake-up. For ze gale you mus’ go to ze Gran’ Bank. Ah, zat ze place!”
With this the others chimed in, and began to tell of their experiences in real gales, to which this one was but a March zephyr.
For all this, a little later, when the crew were gathered in the cabin, where, around the little red-hot stove, wet clothing and boots were sending up clouds of steam, the skipper, after looking out of the companion-way, said,
“Boys, we are in for a regular ‘rip-snorter.’ I never saw a nastier night. You’d better get a nap if you can now, for after midnight there won’t be any chance for sleep aboard this craft. I want the watch on deck to keep the sharpest kind of a lookout, and to call me the moment a light is seen in any direction.”
The great danger of the night lay either in getting adrift, through the parting of their cable or the dragging of their anchor, and rushing into collision with some anchored vessel, or in being run down. In either case the result would probably be the almost instant death of all on board.
Following the skipper’s advice, Breeze crept into his bunk for a nap, but for a long time found it impossible to sleep. The violence of the pitching and the roar of the gale seemed to increase with each moment, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that he could restrain himself from springing up and rushing on deck. At last he did sleep, but was only aware of it when a dash of icy water in his face awakened him. Forgetting where he was, he sprang up, and struck his head violently against the low ceiling above him.
A great sea of solid water had broken over the schooner’s bows, and swept aft in such a volume that it must have flooded the cabin had not the skipper, who stood in the companion-way, pulled the slide. As it was, about a bucketful had made its way in, and a portion of it had fallen on Breeze.
Scrambling from the bunk, he found his companions clad in their oil-skins and prepared to hurry on deck at the first notice that their presence was needed. Several of them were picking themselves up from the floor, to which they had been flung by the shock of the big wave, and one was lamenting a broken pipe. They were much more sober now than at supper-time, and their conversation, which was entirely of wreck and disaster, was not calculated to fill the boy with cheerful thoughts. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was past midnight, and the skipper’s warning that there would be no sleep for them after that hour flashed into his mind.
Following the example of the others, he pulled on his oil-skins, and sat down to wait, he knew not what for. A few minutes later the summons came. It was an unintelligible cry from the watch on deck, but its meaning was clear to the practised ears of those below, and as the skipper sprang up the steps, the others followed.
When Breeze reached the deck and felt the full force of the blast, it seemed to drive the breath from his body. The wind was shrieking through the strained rigging like a hundred steam-whistles. The snow had turned into fine particles of ice that pricked like needles. The billows hissed and seethed as, with streaming manes of glistening white, they galloped past the quivering vessel. Now she was poised on the crest of a gigantic wave, and the next instant buried in a yawning depth, beneath a smother of broken waters that leaped high up on her masts.