"Turn the boat, Denny," they shouted to the man at the wheel. "Turn the boat around. We'll go home in sphite o' thim, the vilyuns."
Their footfalls sounded fainter and fainter as they rushed aft; and Murphy picked himself up from the floor, now almost denuded of its brick paving.
"For the love of Gawd," he groaned, wiping the blood from his eyes, "are they goin' to beach her in this gale?"
The galley was lighted by two large deadlights, one each side, too small to crawl through, but large enough for a man's head. Murphy reached his head through one of them and looked aft. They had surrounded the wheel, and their war-cries were audible. As many as six were handling the spokes, and the big ship was squaring away before the wind, heading for that dim spot of blue in the murk and smoke to leeward. Murphy could see it when the ship pitched into a hollow—about forty miles away.
"And us locked up like rats in a trap," he muttered. "She'll strike in four hours, and Gawd help us all if we can't git out of here."
But there was no getting out, and they made the best of it. The cook and steward emerged from beneath the table, and made more or less frivolous comments on the condition of the galley and the ruin of the dinner, until silenced by the irate Murphy. The two mates took their hands from their aching heads and showed interest in life; and in time Captain Williams came to his senses and sat up on the floor, smeared with bean soup and cluttered with dented pots, pans, and stove-fittings. He was told the situation, and wisely accepted it; for nothing could be done.
And from aft came to their ears the joyous whoops of the homeward-bound men, close to their native land and anxious to get to it by the shortest route. Murphy occasionally looked out at them; they were all near the wheel, cursing and berating those handling the spokes, and being cursed in return. But they were not quarreling.
"Me brother Mike was right," muttered Murphy, as he drew his head in after a look at them. "They've forgotten their dinner. They'd rather fight than ate, but rather wark than fight."
The big, light ship, even with upper canvas gone and the yards braced to port, was skimming along over the heaving seas at a ten-knot rate, and Murphy's occasional glimpses of that growing landfall showed him details of rock and wood and red sandy soil that bespoke a steep beach and a rocky bottom. The air was full of spume and the gale whistled dismally through the rigging with a sound very much like that of Murphy's big base-burner in his Front Street boarding-house, when the chill wintry winds whistled over the housetops. He wondered if he would ever return.
"God help us, Skipper," he said, solemnly, "if we don't strike at high tide. For at low tide we'll go to pieces an' be drowned as the water rises."