"'To say that you sank the Speedwell, as I have indicated'
"Wilbur gathered his strength as if to strike; his face was distorted with passion.
"'You lie, you yellow hound!'
"'Exactly.... Captain, be careful—come no nearer! Also, leave me now, and go away, for I have work to do. If you value your life, you will keep silence, and stay a little forward. Go, quickly! Here I could shoot you with even greater impunity'"
VIII
Nichols paused. "It may be that some of you fellows have never seen Lee Fu's cruising sampan" he remarked "In reality she is more of a junk than a sampan; a sizeable craft of over a hundred tons, the best product of the Chinese shipyard. Lee Fu built her for trips along the coast, where conditions of wind and weather are likely to be severe; many of his own ideas, born of an expert knowledge of ships of every rig and nationality, entered into her construction. The result is a distinctly Chinese creation, a craft that in some unaccountable way seems to reflect his own personality, that responds to his touch and works mysteriously for him. She's higher in the bows than an ordinary junk, and a trifle lower in the stern; a broad, shallow hull, requiring a centreboard on the wind. She is completely decked over for heavy weather. In charge of any one of us, perhaps, she would be fairly unmanageable; but in Lee Fu's hands, I can assure you, she's a sea-boat of remarkable attainments and a yacht of no insignificant speed.
"I had seen him handle her under difficult conditions, but never in such a pass as this. How he accomplished it was inconceivable to me. The last I saw of him that evening, he had called two men to help him at the tiller; so far, he had managed to keep the craft before the wind.... He continued to keep her before it throughout the night, running eastward in open water along the China coast. That is to say, he must have kept her before it—because we came through the night, alive and still afloat. But how, I cannot tell.
"For hours I was alone with the elements, surrounded by pitchy blackness and the storm. I clung to a stanchion, hardly changing my position during the night, drenched by rain and spray, seeing nothing, hearing no word of my companions. The gale roared above us with the peculiar tearing sound that accompanies the body of a typhoon—a sound suggestive of unearthly anger and violence, as if elemental forces were ripping up the envelope of the universe—a sound that carries its own message of latent power, of savage impulse, of unloosed destruction. The wind gained steadily in volume; it picked up the sea in steep ridges of solid water that flung us like a chip from crest to crest, or caught us, burst above us, and swallowed us whole, as if we had suddenly sunk down a deep well. From these plunges the sampan would emerge after a long interval, like a fish coming up to blow. It seemed impossible that she could be kept running; to come into the wind, however, would have been certain disaster. Every moment I expected would be our last. Yet, as time wore on, I felt, through the boat's frantic floundering, a touch of mastery. Lee Fu steered—she still was under his control.
"So we came through, and saw the dawn. A pale, watery light crept little by little across the east, disclosing a scene of terror beyond description. The face of the sea was livid with flying yellow foam; the torn sky hung closely over it like the fringe of a mighty waterfall. In the midst of this churning cauldron our little craft seemed momentarily on the point of disappearing, about to be engulfed by the sheer wrath of the elements. It was a scene to compel the eye, while the heart whined in fear for the return of darkness or the swift downfall of oblivion.
"In a lull of the storm my glance encountered Wilbur; for a long while I'd forgotten him entirely. He hung to the rail a little farther forward, gazing across the maelstrom with a fixed exhausted expression. His face was haggard; the strain of the night had marked him with a ruthless hand. As I watched him, his eyes turned slowly in my direction; he gave me an anxious look, then crawled along the rail to a place by my side.