“Square away the fore-yards!” shouted the captain (the after-yards had already been squared). The ship’s company saw that the immediate danger was passed, and once more, fore and aft, all hands breathed freely.
“The sun will soon be shining out!” exclaimed Bill cheerily, within old Grim’s hearing.
“Don’t be too sure of that, boy,” growled out the latter. “We shall be broaching to, maybe, before long, and be in a worse case than we were just now. I have heard of a ship doing that, running under bare poles, and getting every soul of her crew washed off her deck, except three—the black cook, the caulker’s mate, and the captain’s steward—and a pretty job they had to find their way into port, seeing that neither of them knew anything of navigation, or seamanship either, for that matter; and I should like to know whose case you would be in, Sunshine Bill, if you were left with Dio and Ned Farring, aboard this craft?”
“All I can say is, I hope we should do our best, and trust to Providence,” answered Bill. “I have never heard that a man can do more than that, and that’s what I hope I shall always do, as long as I have life.”
On went the Lilly before the still increasing hurricane. The topgallant masts were struck, and topmasts housed, the yards secured by rolling tackles, and the ship made as snug as she could be. This was done not a bit too soon, for it was evident that she was about to encounter one of the fiercest of West Indian hurricanes, such as have sent many a stout ship to the bottom.
Chapter Five.
The wind howled, and shrieked, and whistled in the rigging, the seas roared and dashed against the sides of the corvette, as under bare poles she rushed on amidst them. Now she rose to the summit of a dark green mountainous billow, with its crest all leaping, foaming, and hissing; then she glided rapidly down its side, as if it had been an ice-mountain, into the dark valley below, again to rise up more slowly to the top of another sea, suddenly to find herself once more in the deep trough, with a huge curling wave reaching almost to her tops, threatening to break over her. Two of the quartermasters were at the helm. The officers were all on deck, the crew at their stations. No one could tell what might next happen.
“If the wind holds as it does now, we shall be all right,” observed Mr Truck, the master, “but if it shifts, we may find ourselves running in among some ugly navigation, and our best chance is to scud as we are doing.”