“It won’t be fine long,” he declared gruffly. “With a ground swell and a sinking temperature always look for squalls. Look there at the north!” The haze on the horizon to the north was rather thicker than elsewhere, and a few thin streaky clouds straggled across the clear, cold heavens. It told nothing to the girls, but the skipper’s face grew grave, and he hurried forward to give some commands.
“Furl topsails!” he shouted to the mate, “and have the mainsails reefed down!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” came the response, and instantly the men began hauling at the halliards, or sprang to the yards above to tuck away the great sails making all snug for the coming storm.
Even Peggy, unused to the sea as she was, could see that a storm was about to burst upon them. The north was now one great rolling black cloud with an angry ragged fringe which bespoke the violence of the wind that drove it. The whole great mass was sweeping onward with majestic rapidity, darkening the ocean beneath it.
“Get below there,” shouted the captain as he suddenly caught sight of the two girls still standing on deck watching the approach of the storm with fascinated eyes. “Get below, I say! D’ye want to be blowed away? Here she comes!”
As he spoke the wind broke in all its fury. The schooner heeled over until her lee rail touched the water, and lay so for a moment in a smother of foam. Gradually she rose a little, staggered and trembled like a living thing, and then plunged away through the storm.
It was a wild and dreary night that followed. Shut in the dark of the cabin Peggy and Harriet clung to each other, or to lockers, to keep from being dashed across the floor of the tossing vessel. All night long there was no chance for sleep. Every moment it seemed as though the ship must go down at the next onslaught of the waves.
“I like not to be mewed up like this,” objected Harriet when there came a chance for speech. “I like the feel of the wind and the hail and the spray.”
“Is thee not afraid, Harriet?” questioned Peggy.
“I am, down here,” answered her cousin. “I can stand any danger best that I can face. But they will not let us up. We might be swept away even if we could stand. And listen to the shouts, Peggy. There must be something amiss.”