The second mate explained in a moment. But Bob suffered. The old man was in a towering rage because he had left his post.
“You flat-footed son of a sea-cook!” he bawled, shaking Promise, big as he was, like a drowned kitten. “What d’ye mean by leaving the wheel? That boy yonder kept his place didn’t he? Scared of a light, be ye? Why, if a sea-sarpint came aboard that wouldn’t be no excuse for your leaving the helm. Git back there!”
And when he started Bob aft again he accelerated his motions with a vigorous kick in the broad of the seaman’s back. Bob grabbed the spokes of the wheel, and braced himself, with a face like a thundercloud. I crowded down my amusement and perhaps it is well I did. The fellow was in no mood for enduring chaffing. When a man is both angry and scared a joke doesn’t appeal to him—much.
I am reminded that this is a sorry scene to depict. Yet Captain Bowditch was a kindly man and not given to unjust punishments. And I believe that Bob got only what he deserved. Even terror cannot excuse a man for neglecting his duty, especially at sea. It is like a private in the ranks enduring the natural fear of a first charge against the enemy. No matter what he may feel in his trembling soul, for the sake of the example he sets the man next to him, he must crowd down that fear and press on!
The storm had broken, however. At daylight we found that four feet of the fore-topmast had been snapped off short, whether by the electrical explosion, or by the wind, we could not tell. But that was the end of that bad spell of weather, thanks be! The Gullwing sailed through it, we spliced on a new spar, trimmed our sails, and tore on, under a goodly press of canvas, for the Horn.
But several of the crew remained gloomy because of the “corpse lights.” Something was bound to happen—of course, something unlucky. The lights had foretold it. And Stronson, with Tom Thornton and other of the old salts, told weird tales in the dog-watch.
In spite of the hurricane we had made good time in this run from Valparaiso. As far as I could see, however, nothing momentous happened at once; and the next important incident that went down in the ship’s log was the sighting of the Seamew.
We really saw her this time—“in the flesh,” not a ghostly mirage. She came out of the murk of fog to the south’ard at dawn and, far away as she was, the lookout identified her.
“Seamew, ahoy!” he yelled.
It brought all hands upon deck—even the mate himself who had just turned in, and the captain, too. There the sister of the Gullwing sailed, her canvas spread to the freshening morning breeze, her prow throwing off two high foamy waves as she tacked toward us.