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"I stove it off until this mornin'. I'd been doin' fust rate too, goin' to picture shows reg'lar, takin' in the sights, and tryin' to make myself believe I was enjoyin' all the luxuries and refinements of life, like Cap'n Bill said I ought to. But when I woke up at daylight and heard this nor'easter snortin' through the streets I couldn't stand it a mite longer.
The nor'easter, packed with a cold, penetrating rain, beat down from the Yellow Sea, its insensate fury clearing the highways of all save belated labourers and 'ricksha boys. Along the Chinese Bund the sampans huddled even more closely together, and rocked and creaked and complained. The inscrutable countenance of the average Chinaman is the result of five thousand years of misery.
From a small opening on the south of the lodge she could see the snow swirling along the shore of the lake and piling up in long drifts against several fallen trees. It was good to be in such a cosy place where she could watch unharmed the trumpeting legions of the great nor'easter. All through the day the storm continued, and night brought no abatement.
"It's the same all the way along to the mouth all over-grown as you see, all the way, right out to the 'white water' as they call it which is four miles of shoal sand that is seldom deeper than two fathoms, and which a nor'easter is liable to blow dry for a week on end.
Gary Peters lifted his eyebrows and then restored his pipe. He spoke through his teeth. "You ain't got a piece of money to bet on that, partner?" he queried softly. "Ten extra if you get to Elkhead before me." "They's limits to hoss-flesh," remarked Peters. "What time you ridin' against?" "Against a cross between a bullet and a nor'easter, Gary. I'm going back to drink to your luck."
The wind that emanated from the fan fairly rammed his words back into his throat every time he opened his mouth to speak, and there he lay, flat against the canvas, fluttering like a leaf, powerless to escape. "Hot air doesn't affect you much, you transparent jackass!" I roared. "Let me see how a stiff nor'easter suits your style of beauty."
"Jest you wait, younker, till you've stood on a toppling deck in the teeth of a nor'easter, with some dunderhead of a captain roaring cuss words at you to cut away the mast that you know is all that's keeping you out of Davy Jones' Locker, and then you'll find what obeying orders means. But if you want the job here, it's yours. What will you take?" "My board and keep," answered Dan.
I reckon I've had as much experience fore and aft, in the course of fifteen years aboard, as any man that ever tied a reef-point in a nor'easter; but I never saw a sight like that, not before nor since. I won't say that I didn't wish myself well on deck; but I will say that I stuck to the shrouds, and looked on steady. Whitmarsh, swearing that that royal should be furled, went on and went up.
But prompt as the ring of a bell to the clapper came Pierre Radisson on the third day, well pleased with what he had done and alert to keep two of us outside the fort in spite of Ben's urgings to bring the French in for refreshments. The wind was shifting in a way that portended a nor'easter, and the weather would presently be too inclement for us to remain outside.
Malcolm walked back to the House, clomb the narrow duct of an ancient stone stair that went screwing like a great auger through the pile from top to bottom, sought the wide lonely garret, flung himself upon his bed, and from his pillow gazed through the little dormer window on the pale blue skies flecked with cold white clouds, while in his mind's eye he saw the foliage beneath burning in the flames of slow decay, diverse as if each of the seven in the prismatic chord had chosen and seared its own: the first nor'easter that drove the flocks of Neptune on the sands, would sweep its ashes away.
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