“‘Cape Horn thunder,’ growled Jensen; ‘you an’ me will disagree somewhat, Williams, if you try an’ scare the boy like that. Jump, blast you, and lay up on that foreyard an’ see if there ain’t some serving wanted on that weather lift. Git!’
“‘Cape Horn h——,” he went on to Johnnie. ‘That ain’t nothing but a bleeding old penguin, and may the devil take his infernal soul.’
“Johnnie didn’t know any more than he did before he spoke, so he kept looking out of the clew of his eye to windward while he worked. The mate was strange and queer when he heard that cry. I don’t know what it was, but it sounded like some one calling out of that great blackness. Jensen went below, and when he came on deck I smelled rum on his breath.
“Soon the cry was repeated, and I must say it did have a depressing effect.
“‘Sure sign of westerly wind,’ said Jensen, as he lit his pipe and walked fore and aft. ‘Better make all snug for’ard there, for, by hookey, it looks as if we were goin’ to have a fracas.’
“I went for’ard and saw all snug and then came aft again. The old man had come on deck, and I could see on his face the glow of his pipe as he drew it. He was standing close to the rail and looking hard to the north’ard.
“‘I don’t believe a barometer is any good in these here latitudes,’ I heard Jensen say to him. ‘I’ve seen the glass way below the centre of a West India hurricane an’ no more wind than now for days on end.’
“It wasn’t five minutes afterwards that I felt a puff, and the topsail came aback with a crack. The old man was on the break of the poop in a second, bawling, ‘All hands wear ship; hard up the wheel!’
“The men jumped for the braces, but it was nearly ten minutes before we got way on her. The wind came slowly. By the time she paid off it had increased, and came harder and harder at every puff, so before we had her braced around on the port-tack it was snorting away in true Cape Horn style. Soon we were switching into it at a great rate, and the big sea that took us fair on the port-bow made a nasty mess on the main-deck, while the maintop-sail with the sheet slacked off, to spill some of the wind out of it, bellied out like some huge monster in the gloom overhead.
“There was nothing more to do, so when the watch was changed I turned in, and after wedging myself into my bunk I fell asleep.