“No, sir,” I said, “we are ready for anything.”
“Oh no, Bob,” replied the Captain, “go on with your studies. There is nothing to do just now. Walter, you may steer by the shore. But I don’t like this slackening of the breeze, and it is drawing more to the south-west; we shall have it right ahead soon. The sun looks ugly, too. That murky red face foretells a row of some kind.”
“I hope that we shall get the Youth safe at her moorings before night comes, or a storm either—shall we not?” asked Harry.
“We’ll hope so,” answered Captain Mugford, who pulled out his pipe and filled it hard, continuing, “Who’ll hand me out a light from the cuddy?” I went in and struck one, and brought him a match, blazing famously. “Thank, you,” he said. “Drake—just,” (puff puff)—“just shake—oh! there goes that light!” I quickly brought him another—“just shake out—that—that—” (puff, puff). He had it all right now, the smoke coming in vast volumes; so he replaced his hat and removed the pipe from his teeth for a moment to complete the order—
“Drake, just shake that reef out of the mainsail.”
“All right, sir!” said Drake. I helped him; but in half an hour the wind, as the Captain had foretold, was ahead, and not strong enough to fill the sails.
Fifteen or sixteen miles we were from home, with every indication that a heavy squall was to follow the calm settling down upon us. The dancing white caps of the morning had died away in a quiet, sullen sea, which only a land-swell moved. The sun had gone down to within a half-hour’s distance of the horizon, shining on the distant western cliffs, whose variety, boldness, and ruggedness were magnified in outline and intensified in colouring by the heavy, yellowish-red glare which fell on them, and the sun’s rays shot out in long forks, piercing the dark blue of the sea at all points in the western semicircle of our view. The atmosphere had grown warm—very warm for a September afternoon.
We boys felt something portentous in the scene. The Captain grew uncomfortable, too, no longer laughing heartily or joining in our talk. He kept his eyes on the sky, and smoked pipe after pipe.
Even Ugly ceased napping beside Walter, and, uttering a whining yawn, as if sleepy but uneasy, walked forward to the idle foresail, and stood there with extended nose to smell out, if he could, what was wrong.
So we lay for nearly an hour, our only movement being with the outgoing tide, the sails flapping with the slow swell of the sea. But when the sun had disappeared the wind commenced to come, first in little puffs, now from one quarter and then from another. The gale would be on us in a moment.