"Meet her! Meet her, Mr. Duff!" shouted Gary, instantly realizing the coming peril.
The men were tumbling from the tops, Ralph among the last, for though ordered down by the considerate mate, he returned with the others when the topsails were to be stowed.
Duff and two old hands were at the wheel; others were lashing loose articles, when with a scream and a screech, the squall was upon them.
At that season and on that coast, these sudden commotions are especially treacherous and full of peril. Coming, as it were from nowhere, either on the heels of fog or calm, their advent is doubly dreaded by the unwary mariner. When the blast struck the schooner, over she heeled, and in a trice the lee scuppers were seething with brine. Each man clung to something for life, as the deck sloped like a house roof.
"Ease her! Ease her!" roared the captain from the main weather bobstays. "For your lives, men! Shove her nose up in the wind."
The scud, as it struck the port bow, flew like shot across the deck. So acute was the shriek of the wind, even shouted orders could hardly be heard.
The Wanderer, trembling like a living thing, slowly—at first almost imperceptibly—rose from the blows hammering at her sides like thunder. There was a long moment of intense, even agonizing suspense, then she began to forge ahead, buffeted, battered, heeling dizzily still to leeward, yet—saved, for the time being at least.
"That was a close call, captain," remarked Duff as the two stood together five minutes later, clinging to the weather shrouds.
"I should say so. Who first heard the thing coming?"
"Young Granger, I believe. There's good stuff in that lad, I make bold to say."