But despite the awful buffeting she was receiving the Quickstep never faltered. On she plowed, riding the green billows like a gull, and shipping a sea only occasionally. The deckload, double-lashed, held, although the deckhouse groaned and twisted until Matt Peasley regretted the impulse that had impelled him to do this foolish thing for the sake of satisfying a grudge.
“She'll make it, sir,” the man at the wheel called up; but Matt's face was a little white and serious as he tried to smile back.
Another sea came ramping aboard and snatched the port lifeboat out of the davits, smashed in the door of the dining saloon and flooded it, gutted the galley, and drove the cook and the steward to the protection of the engine room. The chief called up through the speaking tube:
“How's the boss making it, captain?”
“It's a wet passage for him, chief. I can hear his wife scream every time we ship one.”
“Serves her right for marrying the pest,” the chief growled, and turned away.
They crossed out, but at a cost that made Matt Peasley shudder, when he left the bridge in charge of the mate and went below to take stock of the damage. A new boat and four days' work for a carpenter gang—perhaps eighteen hundred dollars' worth of damage, not counting the demurrage! It was a big price to pay for one brief moment of triumph, but Matt Peasley felt that it would have been cheap at twice the money. He passed round on the starboard side of the vessel and found Mr. Skinner wet to the skin and shivering.
“We're over,” Matt announced cheerfully. “How did you like the going?”
“You villain!” Skinner cried passionately. “You'll never command another ship in the Blue Star fleet, I'll promise you that.”
“I know it, Skinner. But if I were you I'd go down in the engine room and dry out while the cook and the steward straighten things round.”