He again sought the deck. The wind now came steadily, while the whole sky above and the sea about were assuming the gray hue of a gale. He closed all hatches and companions, taking a peep down into the engine room before closing it up. The dynamo was buzzing finely.
A few splashes of rain fell on him, and he clothed himself in oilskins and rubber boots to watch out the gale, choosing to remain aft—where his footsteps over her might reassure the seasick girl below—instead of the bridge, where he would have placed himself under normal conditions.
The afternoon wore on, each hour marked by a heavier pressure of the wind and an increasing height to the seas, which, at first just lapping at the rail, now lifted up and washed across the deck. The boat rolled somewhat, but not to add to his discomfort or that of those below; and there were no loose articles on deck to be washed overboard.
So Denman paced the deck, occasionally peeping down the engine-room hatch at the dynamo, and again trying the drift by the old-fashioned chip-and-reel log at the stern. When tired, he would sit down in the deck chair, which he had wedged between the after torpedo and the taffrail, then resume his pacing.
As darkness closed down, he sought Florrie's door, and asked her if she would eat something. She was too ill, she said; and, knowing that no words could comfort her, he left her, and in the galley ate his own supper—tinned meat, bread, and coffee.
Again the deck, the intermittent pacing, and resting in the chair. The gale became a hurricane in the occasional squalls; and at these times the seas were beaten to a level of creamy froth luminous with a phosphorescent glow, while the boat's rolling motion would give way to a stiff inclination to starboard of fully ten degrees. Then the squalls would pass, the seas rise the higher for their momentary suppression, and the boat resume her wallowing, rolling both rails under, and practically under water, except for the high forecastle deck, the funnels, and the companions.
Denman did not worry. With the wind northwest, the storm center was surely to the north and east-ward of him; and he knew that, according to the laws of storms in the North Atlantic, it would move away from him and out to sea.
And so it continued until about midnight, when he heard the rasping of the companion hood, then saw Florrie's face peering out. He sprang to the companion.
"Billie! Oh, Billie!" she said, plaintively. "Let me come up here with you?"
"But you'll feel better lying down, dear," he said. "Better go back."