CHAPTER XXXI
CAPTAIN SCOTT SETS A REEFED FORESAIL
The Mediterranean had very suddenly lashed itself into a fury. Nothing movable would stay in place, and everything had to be secured. Rope-yarns were in great demand; and Captain Scott had done everything possible for the safety of the property on board, in the pilot-house, on deck, and in the cabin. At first everything in the galley was pitched into heaps; but Pitts had brought order out of confusion there.
By the middle of the afternoon watch, with Morris and Louis on duty, everything had been put in order; for after the captain and Felix believed that all was safe, something would break loose and need further attention. The water-casks had given them the most trouble. Felipe and Pitts had assisted them in putting the half-casks back into the run and securing them there; but the full ones, containing fifty gallons each, were more troublesome. They were blocked up in the standing-room, and made fast with strong ropes; but they still had an inclination to break away.
Louis Belgrave had the wheel from four bells, or two o'clock; and he found he had his hands full, and that it required no little of his strength to manage it. He had seen several heavier gales than the present, when the Guardian-Mother knocked about quite as much as the Maud in the more tremendous seas of the Atlantic. Felipe had sailed in the Maud more than any other person on board; but he appeared to be the only one who was at all alarmed at the situation, though he had made the voyage from Mogadore to Funchal and back, and at the time when he took his final leave of the Pacha; but he had never been at sea in her in a gale.
At about every roll of the little steamer the sea broke over the bulwarks and swept over the bow and stern where there was no deck-house to obstruct its passage. Every door, window, or other opening had been closed and securely fastened, and thus far no water had found its way into the inside of the boat. As long as the engine did not break down Captain Scott had no fears for the safety of the Maud, uncomfortable as she was to those on board in such a gale.
The little steamer had two masts, and she was rigged as a schooner; but they appeared to be more for ornament than for use. A mainsail, foresail, and jib were stowed away in the forecastle; but it was doubtful if they had ever been bent on. The rigging and spars certainly added to the nautical effect of the craft; and they afforded an opportunity for the display of flags, for the gaffs on each mast were secured in place aloft by the vangs. The American flag had been set at the main peak during the voyage to Tangier; though, as anything but a tender of the ship, she was not legally entitled to use it.
"Well, Louis, what do you think of this?" said Captain Scott, who had watched his opportunity when the starboard side of the steamer was under water to open the port door of the pilot-house wide enough to enable him to enter.
"I think it is a tolerably fresh breeze," replied the young millionaire, as he heaved the wheel over to meet a big billow. "It makes a lively time in a steamer no larger than the Maud."
"It is a regular muzzler," added the captain. "But I have been out in a gale as heavy as this one in the Seahound; and she was not as big as the Maud."