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"Whether it were to punish him for comin' to sea at his time of life or not I don't know; but from this on we did have the devil's own weather. Gale after gale from the west'ard, shiftin' constant from sou'west to nor'west, and tryin' constant to see from which quarter it could blow the hardest.
"I was not there; I was two hundred miles to the sou'west, first mate of one of those old-fashioned, soft-pine, centerboard barkentines three sticks the same length, you know with the mainmast stepped on the port side of the keel to make room for the centerboard a craft that would neither stay, nor wear, nor scud, nor heave to, like a decent vessel.
He usually had in his mouth a short dudeen; but in an evil moment he put the dudeen, lighted, in the pocket among the powder. Mr. Lowry was an eccentric man. At Briar's Island I overhauled the Spray once more and tried her seams, but found that even the test of the sou'west rip had started nothing. Bad weather and much head wind prevailing outside, I was in no hurry to round Cape Sable.
They were singing "Spanish Ladies": "We hove our ship to when the wind was sou'west, boys, We hove our ship to for to strike soundings clear; Then we filled our main tops'l and bore right away, boys, And right up the Channel our course did we steer.
As he spoke, Lennard saw what seemed to him like an illimitable sea of huge spumy billows and tumbling masses of foam, which seemed to roll and break over each other without sound. The silent cloud-ocean was flowing up from the sou'west. Mr Hingeston took his bearings by compass, slowed down to fifty miles an hour, and then Lennard saw the masses of cloud rise up and envelop them.
What do you want?" "Would you mind telling me what you've done with my clothes?" "Not a bit. I've got 'em out on the line, and they ain't dry yet. If you'll look on the chair by the sou'west window you'll find a rig-out of mine. I'm afraid 'twill fit you too quick you're such an elephant but I'll risk it if you will."
After lunch, that she might not be in when he came, she ordered her mare, and rode up on the downs alone. The rain had ceased, but the wind still blew strong from the sou'west, and the sky was torn and driven in swathes of white and grey to north, south, east, and west, and puffs of what looked like smoke scurried across the cloud banks and the glacier-blue rifts between.
"You seem to be holding the course, all right sou'west, by sou', Senor LeVere says." "Yas, Senor." "What is your name?" "Cochose, Senor; Ah's a French nigger." "Very good, Cochose; my name is Gates, and I am the new first officer. If you need any help, let me know."
But the next time a gale come from the sou'west he wuz glad to submit to my drapin' him; so I laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big bow knot under his chin. Then agin he reviled the bow, and said it would make talk. But I held firm and told him I wuzn't goin' to tear my veil tiein' it in a hard knot.
Thus we slid through the velvet night with the Double Cross hanging low, sou'west by south. It must have been about an hour before dawn that a shiver of expectancy thrilled us unanimously. "Did you hear that, sir?" said Captain Triplett in a low tone. "No ... what was it?" "A sea-robin ... we must be near land ... there it is again."
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