is in fine form this morning; I'm not sure he isn'tgoing to give us the slip; he is right away on the weather bow."
"Give us the slip!" said McBain; "no, that she won't, unless she altersher course. Steward, tell Mr Stevenson I want him."
Stevenson was the mate, and a fine stalwart sailor he was, with darkhair and whiskers and a face as red as a brick.
"Do you think," said McBain, "you can take another knot or two out ofher without carrying anything away?"
"I think we can, sir."
"Very well, Mr Stevenson, shake a few reefs out."
Ap's pipe was now heard on deck, then the trampling of feet, and a fewminutes afterwards there was a saucy lurch to leeward, and, although thefiddles were across the table, Rory received the contents of a cup ofhot coffee in his lap.
"Now the beauty feels it," said McBain, with a smile of satisfaction.
"So do I," said Rory, jumping up and shaking himself; "and its parboiledthat my poor legs are entirely."
"Let us go on deck," said Allan, "and see the whale."
Before the end of the forenoon watch they had their strange companiononce more on the weather quarter.
"It is evident," said McBain, "we could beat her."
Racing a whale, reader, seems idle work, but sailors, when far away atsea, do idler things than that. They were leaning over the bulwarksafter dinner that day gazing it this lonely monster of the deep, andguessing and speculating about its movements.
"I wonder," said Ralph, "if he knows where he is going?"
"I've no doubt he does," said Allan; "the same kind Hand directs hismovements that makes the wind to blow and the needle to point to thenorth."
"But," said Ralph, "isn't there something very solemn about the greatbeast, ploughing on and on in silence like that, and all alone too--nocompanion near?"
"He has left his wife in Greenland, perhaps," said Rory, "and is going,like ourselves, to seek his fortune in the far west."
"I wonder if he'll find her when he returns."
"Yes, I wonder that; for she can't remain in the same place all thetime, can she?"
"Now, boys," said Allan, "you see what a wide, wide world of water isall around us--we must be nearly a thousand miles from land. How, if aGreat Power did not guide them, could mighty fishes like that find theirway about?"
"Suppose that whale had a wife," said Ralph, "as Rory imagines, and theywere journeying across this great ocean together, and supposing theylost sight of each other for a few minutes only, does it not seemprobable they might swim about for forty or fifty years yet never meetagain?"
"Oh, how vast the ocean is!" said Rory, almost solemnly. "I never feltit so before."
"And yet," said Allan, "there is One who can hold it in the hollow ofHis hand?"
"Watch, shorten sail."
McBain had come on deck and given the order.
"The glass is going down," he said to Allan, "and I don't half like thelook of the sea nor the whistle of the wind. We'll have a dirty night,depend upon it."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
THE STORM--A FEARFUL NIGHT--THE PIRATES--A FIGHT AT SEA.
"All hands shorten sail."
The glass had not gone "tumbling down," as sailors term it, which wouldhave indicated a storm or hurricane in violence equal perhaps to thetyphoons of lower latitudes, but it went down in a slow determinedmanner, as if it did not mean to rise again in a hurry, so McBainresolved to be prepared for a spell of nasty weather. The wind was nowabout south-west by south, but it did not blow steadily; it was gusty,not to say squally, and heavy seas began to roll in, the tops of whichwere cut off by the breeze, and dashed in foam and spray over therigging and decks of the _Snowbird_.
It increased in force as the sun went down to something over half agale, and now more sail was taken in and the storm-jib set. McBain wasa cautious sailor, and left no more canvas on her than she could carrywith comparative safety.
The _Snowbird_ began to grow exceedingly lively. She seemed on goodterms with herself, as the captain expressed it. All hands, fore andaft, had found the necessity of rigging out in oilskins andsou'-westers; the latter were bought at Lerwick, and were just the rightsort for facing heavy weather in these seas. They were capaciousenough, and had flannel-lined side-pieces, which came down over the earsand cheeks.
"I think I've made her pretty snug for the night," said McBain, comingaft to where Allan and Rory stood on the weather side of thequarter-deck, holding on to the bulwarks to prevent themselves fromfalling. "How do you like it, boys? and where is Ralph?"
"Oh, _we_ like it well enough," said Rory, "but Ralph has gone below,and is now asleep on the sofa."
"Sleepy is he?" said McBain, smiling; "well, that is just the nearestapproach to sea-sickness. We won't disturb him, and he'll be all rightand merry again to-morrow."
"What do you think of the weather, captain?" asked Allan.
McBain gave one glance round at sea and sky, and a look aloft as if tosee that everything was still right there, ere he replied,--
"The wind is fair, Allan, that's all I can say, but we'll have enough ofit before morning; the only danger is meeting ice; it is often as farsouth as this, at this time of the year."
The night began to fall even as he spoke, for great grey clouds hadrolled up and hidden the sinking sun; sky and sea seemed to meet, andthe horizon was everywhere close aboard of them. The motion of the_Snowbird_ was an unpleasant jerky one; she pitched sharply into thehollows and as quickly rose again; she took little water on board, butwhat little she did ship, made decks and rigging wet and slippery.Presently both Allan and Rory were advised to go below for the night,and feeling the same strange sleepiness stealing over them that hadovercome Ralph, they made a bolt for the companion. Allan succeeded infetching it at once, and when half-way down he stopped to laugh at Rory,who was rolling porpoise-fashion in the lee scuppers. But Rory was moresuccessful in his next attempt. In the saloon they found Ralph soundenough and snoring, and Peter, the steward, staggering in through thedoorway with the supper. The lamp was lighted, and both that and theswing-tables were apparently trying to jump out of their gymbals, and gotumbling down upon Ralph's prostrate form. In fact everything seemedawry, and the table and chairs were jerking about anyhow, and, as Rorysaid, "making as much creaking as fifty pairs of new boots."
"Ah! Peter, you're a jewel," cried Rory, as the steward placed on thetable, between the fiddle bars, a delicious lobster salad and two cupsof fragrant coffee. "Yes, Peter," continued Rory, "it's a jewel you areentirely; there isn't a man that ever I knew, Peter, could beat ye atmaking a salad. And it isn't blarney either that I'm trying to put uponyou."
With supper the sleepy feeling passed away, and Rory said he felt like agiant refreshed, only not quite so tall.
"Bring my dear old fiddle, Peter," he cried, "like a good soul. This isjust the night for music."
_He_ played and Allan read for two hours at least, both steadyingthemselves as best they could at the weather side of the table; thenthey wakened Ralph, and all three turned in for the night and were soonfast asleep.
It was early summer, and Ralph, so he thought in his dream, wasreclining, book in hand, on a sweet wild-thyme-scented green bank inGlentroom. A blue sky was reflected from the broad bosom of the lake,the green was on the birch, the milk-white flowers on the thorn, and thefeathery larch-trees were tasselled with crimson; bees went droning fromwild flower to wild flower, and the woodlands resounded with the musicof a thousand joyous birds.
Ding-dong, ding-dong!
"It is the first dinner-bell from the Castle of Arrandoon," said Ralphto himself; "Allan and his sister will be waiting, I must hurry home."
Ding-dong, ding-dong-ding!
Ralph was wide awake now, and sitting up in his little bed. It was alldark; it must be midnight, he thought, or long past.
Ding-dong, ding-dong-ding again, followed by a terrible rush of waterand a quivering of the vessel, the like of which he had never knownbefore.
Ding, ding, ding! It was the seas breaking over the _Snowbird_ andringing her bell.
"What an awakening!" thought poor Ralph, and he shivered as he listened,partly with cold and partly, it must be confessed, with an undefinablefeeling of alarm. And no wonder!
It was, indeed, a fearful night!
The gale had burst upon them in all its fury, and, well prepared thoughshe was aloft to contend with it, it would require all the vessel'spowers of endurance and all the skill of the manly hearts on board ofher, to bring her safely through it. Every time a sea struck her itsounded below like a dull, heavy
The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure Page 20