Ten minutes later I was struggling up the companionway again to the deck, where the old man was now conning her, and watching her run seventeen knots an hour before a series of hurricane squalls that simply lifted her almost bodily out of the sea.
I saw we had passed the center of the cyclone, for we had the wind almost directly opposite from where it was when we lay knocked down. I got to the shelter of the mizzen, and from there watched the men at the wheel hold her as she ran. Some one had loosed a bit of canvas forward, but it had blown away, and the ribbon streamers stretched and cracked until they vanished in the blast.
"How'd you do it?" I yelled to Slade, who clung in the lee.
"Squalls let up sudden—hit the center—she righted, and then ran off when we hit the other side of it!" howled the mate.
"Where's Komuri?" I howled.
"Don't know—must have gone to leeward. Some Chinks gone, too—you came near going."
That was all I could get from Slade. But I knew all that was necessary. Komuri had gone to the port of missing ships. He had died as a Samurai should, facing his end fearlessly, fighting to the last for others in the hope to save them, the ones he had tried to help by giving them air and leaving their ports open when they should have been closed. He had known his responsibility, and had done what we had failed to do.
There were three Chinamen missing, but our own men were safe. They had got under the side of the engine house, where they were protected from both the sea and wind. They clung there until the vessel righted, and then turned to with a will to save the ship.
We ran the Tanner all that day and the following night, keeping her before a mighty sea that almost overran us. She steered well once she got off before it, and after we got canvas on her forward she was safe enough. It had been a close squeak for all hands, and we breathed easier as she ran out of the disturbance and came again upon her course. A week later we ran her in behind the reef of Guam, and came to anchor off the town of Agaña, where we were to discharge part of our cargo and the Chinese.
In behind the barrier we ran her without further incident, and as the wind fell we rolled up the canvas and let her drift into fifteen fathoms before letting go the hook.