Such was the style of conversation among our men. What the Frenchmen were saying I do not know. They very soon recovered their spirits and courage, and began laughing and chattering, and dancing about the deck in higher spirits than ever. Perhaps they did not always intend to move, but the now fast rising seas gave the lively little vessel sudden and unexpected jerks, which sent them jumping forward or aft, or from side to side, whenever they happened not to be holding on to anything. Still I did not feel that we were altogether free from danger. The hurricane blew fiercer and fiercer, the sea also got up rapidly, and threw the vessel about in a way which made it very difficult to steer before it. Fortunately our topmasts were housed, or they would have been jerked overboard. I asked McAllister what he proposed doing.
“Doing! Why, of course, scud on till the hurricane has blown itself out,” he answered.
“But doesn’t the wind sometimes shift in a hurricane, and blow more furiously from another quarter?” I asked.
“Of course it does, and perhaps it will, and we shall be blown back again as far as we have come,” he said, taking a look at the compass.
“But suppose it was to blow us back farther than we have come,” I observed.
“Merry, just go and bring the chart to the companion stair,” was his answer. “It will be blown away if we have it on deck, and I cannot go below just now.”
I brought the chart, at which he took a rapid glance. Eastward, as we were now driving, we had plenty of sea-room, and in a wholesome craft like ours, there was nothing to fear; but westward there was the coast of Central America, fringed by rocks and sandbanks, on which many a noble ship has been stranded since Columbus discovered the western world.
“It is to be hoped that the wind will not shift,” he answered. “It does not always. Don’t let us anticipate evil.”
Lieutenant Préville inquired what we were talking about. We told him. He shrugged his shoulders. “Patience; the fortune of war; we seamen must always be subject to such reverses,” he remarked.
“The Frenchman takes things easily,” observed McAllister. “I wish that I could do so.”