“Lead on, and let me see what I can do with them.”
They went out together, Jeffray closing the cabin door and calling back to Bess to shoot the bolts. Captain George, sulky and silent, leaned against the hand-rail, shading the lamp behind his coat. To Jeffray it seemed that the force of the wind had lessened, and that the ship groaned and tumbled less in the troughs of the sea. A wet moon shone out now and again through the ragged clouds, lighting up the dishevelled waters that raced under the hurrying sky.
Captain George and Jeffray took the lower deck where the darkness was utter save for the lamp the seaman carried. The port-holes oozed with every thundering up of the sea, the perpetual thudding of the waves reverberating through the body of the ship. Piled about the shaft of the main-mast were the trunks and boxes that the Rodenham coach had brought from Lewes, and Jeffray looked at them with a tightening of the mouth. There was a depth of pathos in the thought that all these rich stuffs that he had bought for Bess might be torn to shreds by the remorseless sea. The pity of it strengthened all the manhood in him, and made him realize for what he fought.
Captain George had halted suddenly, and stood listening, the lantern swinging in his hand.
“D’yer hear ’em? It ben’t no use, sir, I tell you, it ben’t no use.”
Jeffray heard laughter and rough voices rising above the racket of the storm. There was a note of fierce defiance in the sound, as though the tired and disheartened men were going to death with blasphemy upon their lips.
Captain George shivered as though cold.
“They’re getting the drink in ’em,” he said, peering forward into the darkness.
Jeffray pushed the coward forward.
“Our duty’s clear,” he said, “we must pitch the devil’s juice into the sea.”