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"Expect all hell to break loose," he cautioned me, "but don't mind it. Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand by the fore-sheet." I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of sides, for the weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. Having instructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered into the fore-rigging a few feet.
Giaccomo had done the same, while Francois was standing on the side of the cabin-companion, and clinging convulsively with both hands to the weather-rail. Crawling up to the side of the Corsican, I placed my mouth to his ear and shouted, "Do you think you can cut away the mast?" "No! no! no!" he earnestly returned.
With speaking-trumpet in hand, and holding on by the weather-rail, he ordered the mizen-topsail to be furled.
The station of those on deck was a good two-handed grip on the ringbolts under the weather-rail, where, so great was the slope of the deck, they clung desperately for fear of sliding down and into the swirling torrent. Hour after hour the Nettie and the Lass fought it out, and hour after hour the gale increased.
The lean lieutenant craned his neck and whispered to Smeaton, the second, while officers and men came popping up from below and clustered along the weather-rail, shading their eyes with their hands for the tropical sun was already clear of the palm trees.
He then went below to the cabin to perform his calculations. The lookout man, a ready sleeper, was in a heavy slumber, upon which the stiffening breeze made no effect. The rest of the watch had disappeared in the customary fashion. Captain Anderson was practically alone on deck. He walked forward, leaned over the weather-rail, and directed his glass. He saw just exactly what he expected to see.
"Pass the slaver's lee-beam, sir," said Wilder to him, with a gesture of authority; and then the young Captain went himself to lean on the weather-rail, like every other idler on board, to examine the object they were so fast approaching.
The schooner came around with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of spray blowing over her weather-rail, for there was no doubt that the breeze was freshening fast. Dampier now sent a man up into the foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterward.
Anderson himself holds the wheel. He has put the helm up, and soon the great ship, with swelling sails, breaks out of the current. He feels the change in an instant; the hands know it too. But the danger is not past. Leaving the wheel to another, he runs quickly forward to lean over the weather-rail. As he passes through the crowd on the fo'castle, the poor fellows cheer him ringingly.
I had the morning watch, and when I came on deck, at four, there was no change in the weather. Mr. Marble soon appeared, and he walked into the waist, where I was leaning on the weather-rail, and fell into discourse. This he often did, sometimes so far forgetting the difference in our stations afloat not ashore; there I had considerably the advantage of him as occasionally to call me "sir."
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