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He seated himself on it and it groaned under his weight. "Whew!" he whistled. "Never made to stand rough weather, was it? Well, AIN'T you glad?" Keziah looked at him gravely. "You know I'm glad, Nat," she said. "So? I hoped you would be, but I did want to hear you say it. Now you come to anchor yourself and let's have a talk. I've been countin' on it ever since we set tops'ls off Surinam."
He walked off looking worried, and his tops'ls hadn't much more'n sunk in the offing afore who should walk out of the billiard room behind us but Eddie Small. "Brown," says he to Peter T., "I want you to have a horse and buggy harnessed up for me right off. Mrs. Small and I are going for a little drive to to over to Orham," he says.
That is the Seamew, Ida May," he exclaimed. "Tut, tut! What's Tunis got himself into such a pickle for? 'Tain't reasonable he should being as good a seaman as he is. "My, my! Why don't he get some cloth on her? He can't have lost all his upper canvas. Don't he know he needs tops'ls to beat up aslant of this gale and get into the shelter of the Head? I swan!
"Very good," replied the other with a sneer, "then wotiver is the cap'n's fate you'll have the pleasure of sharin' it with him." "Tumble up there! tumble up, an' reef tops'ls!" roared the captain down the hatch at that moment. The men obeyed, and for the time their mutinous intentions seemed to have been dismissed.
Herrick followed him; he could scarce recall the violence of his late emotions, but he felt there was a scene to go through, and he was anxious and even eager to go through with it. The captain, turning at the house-end, met him face to face, and averted his eyes. "We've lost the two tops'ls, and the stays'l," he gabbled. "Good business we didn't lose any sticks.
"I would rather be prepared for them than be caught napping," rejoined the master's mate, eyeing the quartermaster at the wheel, who was giving a helping hand to the two helmsmen, their task being by no means easy to make the ship keep her luff under the circumstances of wind and sea. "I wonder the commander doesn't reef tops'ls? We can't carry on much longer like this!"
"Great God!" groaned Nelson, ghastly, and flung open the port. A dark mass with straggling legs shot past. There was the plump of a body striking the sea, and crash of showering waters. "Man overboard!" roared a voice from the deck. "Back tops'ls. Here, sir!" A rope coiled out and splashed the water. Nelson's head was through the port.
Jo, back yer tops'ls! Didn't Henry tell ye that ye wasn't to convarse upon that there last matter even with yerself, for fear o' bein' overheard and sp'ilin' the whole affair? Come, I'll refresh myself." The refreshment in which Jo proposed to indulge was of a peculiar kind which never failed him it was the perusal of Susan's love-letter.
And when we got there, came from the skipper, "Take in the balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down your stays'l too and go aloft a couple of you, fore and aft, and put the tops'ls in gaskets." We attended to that a gang out on the bowsprit, half a dozen aloft and so on with the skipper to the wheel while it was being done.
"'Old on, my hearties, if that's yerselves that I see!" continued the voice. "Arrah, 'old on there. I'm so tired wadin', I want a short spell to rest myself. Wait now, and I'll come to yez as soon as I can take a reef out of my tops'ls." The joy caused by this greeting, great as it was, was scarce equal to the surprise it inspired. They who heard it were for some seconds incredulous.
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