Phillis had to remain below during this storm, and she was sick again. She cried so for me that the captain—kind old man that he was—let me go down to her whenever I could be spared from the deck. The child seemed to feel that she was perfectly safe if I was with her.
Her constant trust in me made a strong impression upon my mind. Nor was it an unpleasant impression. Nobody had ever leaned before on me as this child did—not even my mother. It made me feel more manly and put me on my very best behavior.
Chapter XXI
In Which the Sister Ships Once More Race Neck to Neck
That gale hit the Gullwing harder than any blow she had been through (so Mr. Barney said) since she had left Baltimore. We could not do much toward making repairs until the gale had blown out; we only cleared away the wreckage aloft, reefed everything snug, and let her drive.
Captain Bowditch worried like an old hen with a mess of ducklings. I don’t know when the old man slept. He was on deck every moment of his own watch, and I could hear him often roaring orders during our watch below.
This was the time when the fact that the Gullwing was short-handed made the crew groan. It was up and down at all hours for us. If there was a lull in the gale we were yanked out and sent aloft to risk an inch more canvas. Cap’n Joe coaxed her along every chance he saw. The thought of getting ahead of the Seamew obsessed the Old Man’s mind while he was awake, that was sure!
We discussed our chances forward with much eagerness, too. The Seamew had left us behind during the fair weather; we could make up our minds to that. But now we had a better chance. The Gullwing was better worked, short of hands as she was, than the Seamew.
I remembered vividly how Cap’n Si Somes hopped about, and bawled orders, and seemed to get in his own way when a squall came up, or the weather was unfavorable. He was a more nervous man that our skipper; and, I believed, he was nowhere near so good a seaman. At least, I had got that idea in my head, and comparing the actions of the two skippers in a squall, I guessed any unprejudiced person would have accepted my view as correct.
We came out of this blow at last, fair weather returned, and Phillis had her awning re-rigged, and was able to come on deck again, although the Atlantic billows were tumbling heavily.