I endeavored to get my feet, but the motion started the trouble in my throat, and I fell back, weakly.
"Never mind; you'd better keep to your bunk," the carpenter said. "To-morrow you'll be up and about, I'll warrant. I'll leave this bottle for you, sir."
I detected an anxious look in his face as he handed me a glass of water and spirits. Again I fell asleep, and awoke some time late in the afternoon, feeling much better.
The brig had a great motion on her, and every plank and timber was groaning and creaking. I took a sip out of the bottle, which was wedged in the corner of the bunk, and although it scalded and burned me, it seemed to give me strength, and I crawled out, and stumbling to the foot of the ladder, made my way up on deck. The sky had grown black and angry. We were on the starboard tack under reefed topsails, and everything was wet with flying spray. The Duchess of Sutherland, for that was the brig's name, belonged to an era of shipbuilding when they believed that every breeze must blow over a vessel's stern, I should think. The way she kept falling off was a caution. She appeared to go as fast sideways as she did ahead, and such a pounding and thumping as she made of it I have never seen equalled. Most of the crew were on deck, and one of them, a fine seaman named Caldwell, saw me standing holding on to the hatch combing. He came up, touching his forehead in salute.
"She's a bug of a ship, Captain Hurdiss," he said.
I nodded, and glanced up at the aged time-seamed masts.
"It won't pay to carry much more sail, sir," the man said, as if in suggestion.
I beckoned him to put his head close to mine, and gave an order to take in the foresail, for it was holding us back more than helping us. The man bawled out the order, and jumped with the rest to obey it. I felt so weak that once more I sought the cabin. I took a glance at the barometer as I went by, and saw that it was still falling; that we were in for a hard blow or a storm I did not doubt.
But the rolling and tumbling increased, and the groaning and complaining of the timbers led me to believe that the old craft was working like a basket, which was exactly what she was doing. Suddenly she gave a lurch so hard and sharp to port that I was almost spilled out of the berth, and fear giving me strength, I crawled up on deck on all fours. The man at the wheel was doing his best to bring the brig's head up in the wind, the jib had blown out and was tearing into streamers, the men in the forecastle were working away at something, and I heard a wail from the prisoners below.
It looked as if we were bound to capsize, but at this moment the topsail blew out of the bolts and we righted. But the storm was upon us; the tops of the seas blew off and scudded along the surface like drifting snow; there was a fiendish howling in the rigging. I motioned with my hand for the helmsman to swing her off. He understood, and soon we were before it, scudding under bare poles toward the north. But even then the Duchess made bad weather of it, yawing and plunging badly. Dugan, whom I had appointed second mate, came up to me.