The book dropped from Emily's hand. She swayed where she stood. She had fought and won a battle as brave as any field of war ever knew. Yet an angry glance, which struck her and cut like a whiplash, was her reward.
"Why didn't you answer me when I called?" Lavelle demanded, but paused not on an answer. "Get aft to that wheel! Go! Run! Keep her nor'east until I can get back to you!"
With that he was gone from her. Like a soldier, without questioning, without a word, she went aft to do what this man had bidden.
The fire under the donkey was dead when Lavelle got to the engine room. It would take an hour to make steam. The barometer and his sea wisdom told him that he had only minutes to prepare.
Whatever the battle was to be it was with his own hands that Paul Lavelle must fight it. With this realization a terrific rage filled him. It was fed with each breath that he snatched out of the blackness. The sea was a personal enemy. Thus men who deal with it in long intimacy come to visualize it. The sea was a sneak—a coward; always striking below the belt.
Lavelle had squared the yards before he had gone aft in the evening, leaving the braces slack so as to cast the Daphne on the most advantageous tack at the first coming of a breeze. He had expected a wind from the north and west. Here it was out of the southeast. The gusts which had roused him had struck the bark on the starboard quarter. It had brought her to on that side. She was now forging ahead on the starboard tack. As she rode she was under a double-reefed foresail, reefed upper and lower fore and main topsails, foretopmast-staysail, and inner or boom jib. The growing breeze lifted the slack out of the starboard or weather braces. The lone worker in the darkness led the falls of the lee braces to the main deck capstan and hove them in. And wherever he went he belayed rope and line with a double hitch. There was a finality about everything he did.
He set the maintopmast-staysail, hoisting it with the capstan. He would ride her with that if it should be possible to heave her to after he had located the bearing of the storm's center.
He ran aft only to stop at the entrance to the alleyway. He remembered the boom jib.
"Too much headsail with a reefed spanker," he muttered.
He sped forward again, found the jib halyards, and let them go. As a last touch of precaution he bent the jib downhaul to the foretopmast-staysail clew as a preventer sheet.