“That task belongs to the Captain,” said I. “She will suffer it from you.” He smiled at me grimly and went astern. And, as I said, the maiden let him have his way; and there she stood, as night closed, erect and steadfast, with her hands on the tiller and her brave face set seaward.
’Twas a fearful night of shrieking wind and thundering wave. Often and often as the brave Miséricorde reared and hung suspended on a wave’s crest, we knew none of us if she would ever reach the next. Lucky for us we were a flush-decked ship and our hatches sound, for the seas that poured over us would have filled us to the brim in an hour. Lucky, too, the Frenchman’s cargo had been snugly stowed, or we should have been on our beam-ends before midnight. Half-way through the night, there was a loud crack and over went our main top-mast with her sails in ribbons. We had scarce time, at great peril, to cut her away, when another burst snapped our mizzen almost at the deck.
“That lightens us still more,” said Ludar. “Let go all the forward canvas, and cut away. We must put her into the wind and let her drive under bare poles.”
With that he went to the helm, where indeed the maiden must have needed succour. And there he stayed beside her till the night passed.
Afterwards he told me that he found her there, half stunned by the wind, but never flinching, or yielding a point out of the course. “I know not if she was pleased to see me there,” said he. “She said little enough, and hardly surrendered me the tiller. But when we put the ship into the wind, there was little to do, save to stand and watch the sea, and shield ourselves as best we might from the force of the waves that leapt over the poop.”
And fierce enough they were, in truth. But what was worse was that our course now lay due west, bringing us every league nearer the coast. Should the tempest last much longer we might have a sterner peril to face on the iron Northumbrian shore than ever we had escaped in the open sea.
The night passed and morning saw us driving headlong, with but one mast standing and not a sail to bless it. The maiden who had stood at her post since sundown yielded at last and came down, pale and drenched, to her quarters. The poet too, who had clung all night to the halyards, looking faithfully ahead and polishing his ode inwardly at the same time, also crawled abaft, half frozen and stupid with drowsiness. Indeed, there was little any of us could do, and one by one Ludar ordered us to rest, while he, whom no labour seemed to daunt, clung doggedly to the helm.
Thus half that day the wind flung us forward, till presently, far on the horizon, we could discern the sullen outline of a cliff.
“We are lost!” said I.
“Humphrey, you are a fool,” said Ludar. “See you not the wind is backing fast?”