"THERE'S GOLD ON THE CUSHAGS YET."
Then there came a breath of wind. At first it was soft as an angel's whisper. It grew stronger, and ruffled the sea. Every man lifted his eyes and looked at his mates. Each was struggling with a painful idea that perhaps he was the victim of a delusion of the sense. But the chill breath of the wind was indeed among them.
"Isn't it beginning to puff up from the sou'west?" asked Crennell, in an uncertain whisper. At that old Quilleash jumped to his feet. The idea of the supernatural had gone from him. "Now for the sheets and to make sail," he cried, and spat the quid.
One after one the men got up and bustled about. Their limbs were wellnigh frozen stiff. All was stir and animation in an instant. Pulling at the ropes, the men had begun to laugh, yes, with their husky, grating, tear-drowned voices, even to laugh through their grisly beards. A gruesome sense of the ludicrous had taken hold of them. It was the swift reaction from solemn thoughts. When the boat felt her canvas she shook herself like a sea-bird trying her wings, then shot off at full flight.
"Bear a hand there. Lay on, man alive. Why, you're going about like a brewing-pan, old fellow. Pull, boy, pull. What are your arms for, eh?" Old Quilleash's eyes, which had been dim with tears a moment ago, glistened with grisly mischief. "Who hasn't heard that a Manxman's arms are three legs?" he said with a hungry grin. How the men laughed! What humor there was now in the haggard old saw!
"Where are you for, Billy?" cried Corkell.
"Peel, boy, Peel, d—— it, Peel," shouted Quilleash.
"Hurroo! Bould fellow! Ha, ha, he, he."
"Hurroo! There's gold on the cushags yet."
How they worked! In two minutes the mast was stepped, the mainsail and mizzen were up, and they filled away and stood out. From the shores of death they had sailed somehow into the waters of life, and hope was theirs once more.