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Updated: October 8, 2025
Later on, as the wind subsided, the schooner, having shown her mettle, settled once more into her stride and flew along like a ghost. Then, for the first time since the storm had begun, the captain laid aside his oil-skins and relaxed. "That was a fierce blow," chuckled Tyke. "A little more and you might have called it a hurricane." "It was a teaser," asserted the captain.
In a queer set of outside garments that I have learned are called "oil-skins," the crew, officers, and captain went to and fro, trying their best to keep things straight. In some way I knew that the brave captain was not afraid. A little pale he was, surely, but his voice was firm as he called through a strange fixture called the ship's trumpet.
You see, Miss, the oil-skins chafe our wrists most awful when we're workin' of the gear " "What is the gear, Billy?" "The nets, Miss, an' all the tackle as belongs to 'em. An' then the salt water makes the sores wuss it used to be quite awful, but the cuffs keeps us all right. An' the books an' tracts, too, Miss the hands are wery fond o' them, an' "
When Rollo came up with the oil-skins they told him what had been decided, and Rollo, the faithful, the expressionless, dropped his eyelids, but he could not banish from his voice the wistfulness that he might have been one to stay behind. "Sometimes it is best for a person to change his mind, sir," was his sole comment.
It was a singular sight which met his eyes as he entered the sitting-room of the Admiral. A great sea chest stood open in the center, and all round upon the carpet were little piles of jerseys, oil-skins, books, sextant boxes, instruments, and sea-boots.
His bed was higher from the floor than usual and, moreover, the floor was different. In the dim light he distinctly saw a ship's forecastle, untidy bunks with frouzy bedclothes, and shiny oil-skins hanging from the bulkhead. For a few moments he stared about in mystification; he was certainly ill, and no doubt the forecastle was an hallucination.
With his left hand the doctor clutched Rod's oil-skins, and was soon able to drag him into the yacht. This had scarcely been accomplished before the captain pulled himself aboard, and stood by his side. Forgotten was everything else as the old seaman bent over Rod as he lay in the bottom of the cock-pit. "I believe he's unconscious, Doc," he cried. "Is there anything ye kin do fer him?"
No one, however, could guess his thoughts as he stood there upon the quarter-deck, clad in oil-skins, drenched with spray, glancing now at the compass, now at the sails, or at the scarce visible horizon. As darkness deepened and tempest increased, the passengers below became less cheerful, with the exception of one curly-haired little girl, whose exuberant spirit nothing could quell.
Wada tells me that they never undress, but turn into their wet bunks in their oil-skins and sea-boots and wet undergarments. To look at them crawling about on deck or in the rigging is enough. They are truly weak. They are gaunt-cheeked and haggard-gray of skin, with great dark circles under their eyes.
And Juliette felt herself passed on from one pair of strong arms to another, until she was standing on the deck under the humming rigging, surrounded by men who seemed huge in their gleaming oil-skins. "This way, mademoiselle," said one, who was even larger than the others, in English, of which she understood enough to catch his meaning. "I will take you to your father.
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