Under Rocking Skies

by L. Frank Tooker

"Oh, shut up!" he said aloud, and then grinned shamefacedly at his irritability.

As he came to the steps leading up to the poop-deck, he paused and looked about him. It seemed to him that the wind had suddenly ceased, and he could hear it far away, roaring back a defiance through the murky twilight. The next moment he heard the captain shouting to call all hands and shorten sail.

With the crew increased by the men from the lost Danish bark, they had all things made snug and fast in an incredibly short time, and under maintopmast-staysail with the bonnet out, lower topsail, and foretopmast-staysail, they were rolling down the long seas in leisurely fashion by the time night was fairly upon them.

Still panting with his heavy exertion, Medbury was standing by the taffrail, looking down at the foam that now seemed only to creep by them, and thinking gloomily of the water rising in the hold, when suddenly he became aware of an increase in the weight of the wind upon his face. He looked up, but, seeing nothing, glanced down again; but in that brief moment the foam had disappeared, and he was gazing into blackness. He turned quickly, only to see that the same darkness had swallowed up the men at the wheel and every part of the vessel. The binnacle-light was burning, but the dim glow stopped short at the slide: beyond that it seemed to have no power to go. With an indescribable sensation of being absolutely cut off from every living thing, he stepped quickly toward the wheel, and, putting out his hand, touched his captain. It gave him a curious feeling of intense relief. Then he heard Captain March speaking in a calm voice that quieted him instantly.

"Is that you, Mr. Medbury?" he said. "What's wanted?"

"It's getting black, sir," he said—"black as a nigger's pocket."

"I noticed it," said the captain.

"It came on all of a sudden," the mate went on. He wanted to hear his voice and the voice of the captain: in some curious way even the trivial words seemed to mitigate the awful darkness.

"Maybe you'd better get out some lines for the men at the pumps, and make 'em fast across deck," continued the captain. "We can't afford to lose anybody overboard. And bring us some, too. When you've done that, just go down to your room, as if you'd gone to fetch something. Maybe it'll help the women-folks a little to see somebody from the deck before it begins," he went on in a matter-of-fact voice. "But don't stay. I may want you any minute."

In haste, and with hands that fumbled a little, Medbury rigged stout life-lines across the deck for the men at the pumps; and, leaving straps for the captain and his companion at the wheel, descended into the cabin. He struck a match in his room, and looked about him vaguely, smiling to himself at his purposeless errand at a time when moments were fraught with life or death. He was not, like his captain, a man of imagination: his mere passage through the cabin seemed only a bit of fanciful foolishness of which he was a trifle ashamed.