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Later, when he had completed his task, and one of the two narrow outlets from the shop in front was satisfactorily blocked with the wares from without, and all the floor about reeked with the grimy drippings of the oilskins, Mrs. Dabney summoned him to the desk in the rear. "I think you may go home now," she said to him, with the laconic abruptness to which he was so well accustomed.
The women crammed into the pockets of the men's stiff oilskins a piece of bread, a half-filled bottle knowing that, as often as not, their husbands must pass the night and half the next day on the beach, or out at sea, should the weather permit a launch through the surf. There was no need of excitement, or even of comment.
At the after end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woollen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks.
After breakfast they went on deck without oilskins, for wind and sea were going down. There was a dry deck; and above, a sky which, still gray with the background of storm cloud, yet showed an occasional glimmer of blue, while to the east the sun shone clear and unobstructed; but on the whole clean-cut horizon there was not a sign of sail or smoke.
The poop was deserted, save for two helmsmen in streaming oilskins under the half-shelter of the open wheel-house. I nodded good morning to them. One was Tom Spink, the elderly but keen and dependable English sailor.
Wyllard made no reply for another minute, and, as he stood with hands clenched on the wheel, a puff of bitter spray splashed upon his oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to guide them.
Night was now come; the sea rough; Spain lost to sight; the two emptied yachts on the way back to their forts; yonder the lights of the Mahomet II. lying-to; two officers in oilskins walking arm in arm, to and fro, on the roof; and said one: "Look at those waves there all of a sudden: they rather seem to be breaking on the wrong side of us".
Then passing between two suits of oilskins which stood as sentinels in the doorway, he entered the shop and smiled affably at Miss Kybird, who was in charge. At his entrance she put down a piece of fancy-work, which Mr. Kybird called his sock, and with a casual glance at his clothes regarded him with a prejudiced eye. "Beautiful day," said the customer; "makes one feel quite young again."
Times have changed and sea routes, so the name should be passed east to this Gulf of Suez, where ladies and parasols look at their best and the appearance of a man in oilskins would be positively alarming. The Indian judge with the Italian name and myself, are, as far as I can see, the only passengers who are not engaged doing something.
The Galveston and Chattanooga, both pouring forth clouds of smoke, quickly assumed their positions at the head of the line. Captain Farlow paced restlessly up and down the bridge in his oilskins. "I suppose this is the last remnant of the spring storms," he said to his navigating officer, "but it's a good-sized one.
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