“Aye, far enough,” answered John.
“Looks like it's coming on to blow from the east,” said the fisherman.
“Like enough,” answered John, and they passed out of hearing.
By midday a fresh wind was blowing. The mackerel-boat's faded, much-patched sails tugged at her mast, and she groaned as she leaped from the tops of the waves.
“Afeard, be 'ee?” asked Old John.
“Not I,” said Peter.
“The harder it blows, the quicker we'll get there,” said John, and not another word was said.
By night-time it was blowing a gale. A driving, following sea hustled and banged the boat from wave to wave, and the night fell so dark that Peter could not see the old man sitting motionless at the tiller, except when a wave broke in foam and formed a great white background behind him. Peter felt no fear. He knew with the certainty that admits of no argument that he was on his way at last to his beloved.
The wind hummed in the boat's rigging with a droning note like that of the Sea Maid's song. The waves washed along her counter, flinging aboard stinging showers of spray that drenched Peter as he sat on the midship thwart. The jib flapped and tugged at its sheet when her stern rose on a wave and groaned with the strain as her bow lifted. Each time she strained streams of water gushed through her crazy seams. At last a fierce gust of wind drove her nose so deep into the water that it poured in a cascade over her bows, and then a great, curving comber broke over them. Peter was washed from his seat and jammed between the mast and the leech of the mainsail as the water rose over his head.