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If I had not talked with Captain Freeman and heard from him just how the black swirl of wind and fire rolled down upon him, I would not have been so apprehensive, but would have thought that the darkness and cloud that came down upon us meant just an unusually heavy squall." "The Etona's run from Montevideo was a fast one I think a record breaker. We were 22 days and 21 hours from port to port.
"It is Agnes Bentley and and that boarder of theirs," he said anxiously, "and they've gone out with Little Ev in that wretched, leaky tub of his. Where are their eyes that they can't see a squall coming up?" "An' Little Ev don't know as much about managing a boat as a cat!" exclaimed Snuffy excitedly. "Sign 'em to come back." Si shook his head. "They're too far out.
An occasional pathos of simple humanity, and frequent patches of big Biblical words, relieved the homely tissue. It was a poetry apart; bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the soil. A little before the coming of the squall there was a different scene enacting at the outposts.
The seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she had to bear up under bare poles, and disappeared. Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer.
Of coorse I went sowse into the water, and had only time to give out one awful yell when the water shut me up. Fortnitly my father heard me; jumped in and pulled me out, but instead of kicking me or blowin' me up, he told me that I should have kept my weather-eye open an' met the squall head to wind.
Adair doubted whether there would be anything more than a squall. Just then the sails flapped ominously, and there was a perfect calm. The flame of a candle brought on deck would have ascended straight upwards. "Adair, I tell you it will be down on us in a few minutes, and with terrific force too," exclaimed Murray. "All hands shorten sail!"
As to ascertaining if a squall had blown it on the landing-place, half way up, that was impossible in the dark. "If it is a joke," cried Pencroft, "it is a very stupid one! To come home and find no staircase to go up to your room by that's nothing for weary men to laugh at." Neb could do nothing but cry out "Oh! oh! oh!"
Tourniquet had not the heart to move and give Scribble a thrashing, or he would have done so. But to return on deck. The instant the squall struck the ship, Captain Poynder hastened from his cabin, and, seizing his speaking-trumpet, in a calm tone issued the necessary orders. "Down, every youngster, from the rigging. Clue up haul down let fly of all!" It was too late.
After a good half-hour's hard work, the courses were clewed up and furled, the jib hauled down, and the topsails close-reefed, a staysail being set to steady her, when the men came down from aloft pretty well worn out with their exertions. Hardly had they got below, however, than the captain, seeing a second squall coming, ordered them up again, to strip the ship of her remaining sail.
"We may have a black squall come roaring up from off the land, and take our topsails out of the bolt-ropes, or our topmasts over the side, before we know where we are, if you don't keep a bright look-out for it; and we shall have the rainy season beginning in earnest directly, and then look out for wet jackets."
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