The mate still stood by the skylight, with the lantern in his hand, when Paul Casimer made his appearance on deck, wearing a long sea-coat that reached to his heels, and with a slouch hat drawn low over his eyes and violently pulled down at the back, to keep out the weather.
"A rough night, Mr. Moore," he said, rather crabbedly. "What are our soundings?"
"Nine fathoms," answered the mate, with no very evident desire to be communicative.
"And little enough it is, too!" grumbled Mr. Casimer. "We will be on the reefs the first you know, if you keep her going at this rate—twelve or fourteen knots an hour, and the wind tight after us."
Mr. Moore made no reply, and when he had made two or three turns of the deck, with every appearance of having very little confidence in either his legs or his stomach, Mr. Casimer sullenly retired, and Phil and the mate were again alone.
"Our friend, Don Casimer, seems to have a rather ugly twist in his temper to-night," laughed the mate, as soon as the object of his remarks had disappeared. "If a shark were to dine off him, it would not much matter, for he's the sort of a fellow that hates himself and everybody else. He's in the Cuba trade, and thinks— Eh, by George, boy, look out, or you'll be overboard! That was a thumper, and no mistake!"
The tremendous wave that struck the ship, and jerked the word of caution from the mate's lips, threw Phil violently against the nettings, deluging the deck and sending a shower of blinding salt spray as high as the smoke-stack.
Phil righted with the ship—that is, he scrambled to his feet and shook the brine from his eyes, as soon as the gallant little steamer got her propeller again in the water, and had settled herself for another shock.
"I should say it was a thumper!" gasped Phil. "It seemed to walk on board and grab at everything within its reach. It's got my hat, and would have got me, if I had not clung for dear life to the nettings."
"It's a way these heavy cross-seas have of introducing themselves, lashed by such a wind as is blowing now," said Mr. Moore. "I think you must have been cut out for a sailor, you take so kindly to the rough side of a sailor's life."