Aft he sped again and through the cabin. A faint murmur came to him as he ran by the derelict's room.
Out of the pile of slop-chest staff in the after cabin he snatched an oilskin coat and sou'wester. He struggled into them as he climbed through the companion way into this lounge.
A flash of a match brought the barometer's dial out of the blackness. 28:03!
An impulse to smash it for its trickery seized him. He forbore and plunged outside. He thrust Emily away from the wheel. As he bent to peer into the binnacle she shuddered at the rage which distorted his face. Thus men, she thought, must look in battle with the blood lust upon them. There was something primordial, relentless, about him. He was the elemental man, sensate that a kill was at hand.
The Daphne was heeling over, further and further, under the onslaught of the rising wind.
The roughness with which Lavelle had pushed Emily away from the wheel started a demon of resentment to life in her. Her arms were aching. It had seemed that the wheel must draw them from their sockets while she was alone. Steering the Daphne while Lavelle had been forward had not been the tame task of the afternoon.
She stood trembling where this man had shoved her. She could have struck him.
"Get below! Close every port—every door! Jump! Then, come back and light that lamp in the lounge!"
Anger swept her at his brutal tone. Tears blinded her. They were the tears of a rage of which she had never believed herself capable, oho could not move.
"Go—on!" he yelled.