However, just now he was eager to reach outdoors. He mounted the ladder and found himself in a box-like hatch. He thrust aside a canvas flap and stepped out on deck.
A blast of cold wind slapped his face and almost took his breath for a moment. He was facing aft, looking out over the stern of the ship, and his eyes beheld a tumbling chaos, a fearsome waste of leaping waters.
In the foreground of this picture, just across the skylight from him, stood the man at the wheel. He was an integrant feature of that wild scene, felt Martin. In Heaven's name, what manner of outlander was he? Squat and bulky in oilskins, broad-faced, high-cheeked, brown-colored, his forehead was tattooed, and ridges of horrible scars disfigured both plump cheeks. His eyes were small, feral; he gave Martin a fleeting, incurious glance, and turned his attention to his work. He stood impassive, clutching the wheel-spokes.
The deck was wet and slippery. The ship lunged down the slope of a sea, and Martin slid to leeward. He fought his way up-deck again and grasped the side of the hatch for support. The mishap had turned him about. He now faced forward, and the wheelman was forgotten.
He was on the poop, and he overlooked the length of the ship. The brig Cohasset was before his eyes, as much of her as was above water. But, as a matter of fact, and as he was later informed, he did not look upon a brig at all; the Cohasset was a brig only by virtue of sailors' loose habits of speech. She was in truth "a rig what ye rarely see, lad, a proper brigantine, a craft what I'll be swiggled stiff if ye can mate 'er anyw'ere for sailing and comfort."
But nice distinctions of rig did not bother Martin on this, his first, view of his new home. He was looking through his landsman eyes.
He saw, over the break of the poop, a sweep of deck that careened till the lee rail dipped, and green seas lolloped aboard and swirled, foam-flecked, aft. He saw the long jib-boom, now stabbing the leaden sky, now plunging into the depths. He saw the pyramid of bellying canvas on the foremast, the great foresail, the topsails, and the bare spars above.
He saw the great boom above his head, and the vast expanse of the mainsail, a tremendous canvas, even though reefed. He saw the straining, board-like staysails. He heard the harsh scream of the wind aloft, the vibrant thrumming of tautened stays, the banging of a block, the crash of boarding seas. Grim sounds, and an outlook to daunt a young man whose maritime experience consisted of an occasional ferry-boat trip.
Martin was aghast. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom, lost, tossed about, sport of those monster waves. The ticklish game of "carrying on" was beyond Martin's present ken. He was thinking in the terms of his favorite literature. He was awe-struck by the fury of the elements, by the limitless expanse of upheaving waters, by the long, white-crested seas racing down the wind. He was beholding the raging main!
"Hello, Mr. Blake! Glad to see you about. Nice little puff we have had for a starting boost—about blown out, I'm afraid."