“Looks like dirty weather, skipper,” said Dick, pointing to windward.
“Right you are, lad,” said Jim, and called all hands to close-reef.
This being done and everything made snug, the skipper again turned in, with orders to call him if things should get worse.
Soon after, Dick, who was at the helm, saw a squall bearing down on them, but did not think it worth while to call the skipper. It broke on them with a clap like thunder, but the good Dolphin stood the shock well, and Dick was congratulating himself when he saw a sea coming towards them, but sufficiently astern, he thought, to clear them. He was wrong. It broke aboard, right into the mainsail, cleared the deck, and hove the smack on her beam-ends.
This effectually aroused the skipper, who made desperate but at first ineffectual efforts to get out of his berth, for the water, which poured down the hatchway, washed gear, tackles, turpentine-tins, paint-pots, and nearly everything moveable from the iron locker on the weather-side down to leeward, and blocked up the openings. Making another effort he cleared all this away, and sprang out of the berth, which was half full of water. Pitchy darkness enshrouded him, for the water had put out the lights as well as the fire. Just then the vessel righted a little.
“Are you all right on deck?” shouted Jim, as he scrambled up the hatchway.
“All right, as far as I can see,” answered Dick.
“Hold on, I’ve a bottle o’ matches in my bunk,” cried the skipper, returning to the flooded cabin. Fortunately the matches were dry; a light was struck, and a candle and lamp lighted. The scene revealed was not re-assuring. The water in the cabin was knee-deep. A flare, made of a woollen scarf soaked in paraffin, was lighted on deck, and showed that the mainsail had been split, the boat hopelessly damaged, and part of the lee bulwarks broken. The mast also was leaning aft, the forestay having been carried away. A few minutes later Lively Dick went tumbling down into the cabin all of a heap, to avoid the mast as it went crashing over the side in such a way as to prevent the use of the pumps, and carrying the mizzenmast along with it.
“Go to work with buckets, boys, or she’ll sink,” shouted the skipper, himself setting the example, for the ballast had shifted and the danger was great. Meanwhile George King seized an axe and cut away the rigging that held on to the wrecked masts, and fair-haired Charlie laboured like a hero to clear the pumps. The rays of the cabin lights did not reach the deck, so that much of the work had to be done in what may be styled darkness visible, while the little vessel kicked about like a wild thing in the raging sea, and the torn canvas flapped with a horrible noise. Pitiless wind, laden with sleet, howled over them as if thirsting impatiently for the fishermen’s lives. At last they succeeded in clearing the pumps, and worked them with untiring energy for hours, but could not tell how many, for the thick end of a marline-spike had been driven through the clock-face and stopped it.
It was still dark when they managed to rig up a jury-mast on the stump of the old one and hoist a shred of sail. George King was ordered to the tiller. As he passed Greely he said in a cheerful voice, “Trust in the Lord, skipper, He can bring us out o’ worse than this.”