“Oh, I am,” Jeff agreed with a twinkle.
But Captain Green had reckoned without the weather. The Nancy Hanks drifted into three days of calm and sultry heat. At the end of the third day she began to rock gently beneath a murky sky.
“Dirty weather,” predicted the mate, the same who had assisted at the shanghaing. “When you see a satin sea turn indigo and that peculiar shade in the sky you want to look out for squalls,” he explained to Jeff.
It came on them in a rush. The sun went out of a black sky like a blown candle and the sea began to whip itself to a froth. The wind quickened, boomed to a roar, and sent the schooner heeling to a squall across the leaden waters. The open sea closed in on them. Before they could get in sail and make secure the sheets ripped with a scream, braces parted and the topmasts snapped off. The Nancy went pitching forward into the yawning deeps with drunken plunges from which it seemed she would never emerge. Great combing seas toppled down and pounded the decks, while the sailors clung to stays or whatever would give them a hold.
The squall lasted scarce an hour, but it left the schooner dismantled. Her sheets were in ribbons, her topmasts and bowsprit gone. There was nothing for it but a crippled beat toward the Islands.
Four days later she made an offing in the harbor at Honolulu just as a liner was nosing her way out.
Bully Green ranged up beside Farnum and cast a speculative eye on him.
“Sport, I had ought to iron you and keep you in the fo'c'sle until we leave here. It's the only square thing to do.”
Jeff's gaze was on the advancing steamer. She was scarce two hundred yards away now and he could plainly read the name painted on her side. She was the Bellingham of Verden.
“I don't see the necessity, sir,” he answered.