all have gone to the bottom if they hadn’t taken in sail in season.”
“You distress yourself with mighty bugbears,” sneered Mr. Hamblin. “I am very sorry to see you encouraging insubordination among your pupils, and—”
And a blast more savage than any which had before struck the vessel ended the professor’s speech; for, while it drenched him with salt water, it gave him all he wanted to do to hold on for his life. He worked himself round under the lee of the mainmast, and held on with both hands at the fife-rail, his breath blown down into his lungs by the wind.
The squall was not one of those which come and go in a few moments; and, in a short time, the sea had been lashed into a boiling, roaring, foam-capped maelstrom. The Josephine rolled and pitched most fearfully. Below there was a fierce crashing of everything movable, while the winds howled a savage storm-song through the swaying rigging. By the captain’s order, the crew had, with great difficulty, extended several life-lines across the deck, for the safety of those who were compelled to move about in executing the various manœuvres which the emergency required.
The angry professor began to cool off under the severe regimen of the tempest. He was drenched to the skin by the spray, and it required the utmost activity on his part to enable him to keep his hold upon the fife-rail. Now the vessel rolled, and pitched him upon his moorings; and then rolled again, jerking him, at arm’s length, away from them, his muscles cracking under the pressure. Professor Stoute, determined to be on the safe side, had passed the end of the lee topgallant brace around his body, and secured himself to one of the belaying pins. Nothing ever disturbed his equanimity, and though he was doubtless fully impressed by the sublimity of the storm, he was just as jolly and good-natured as ever.
The captain and the executive officer were holding on at one of the life-lines on the quarter-deck. Paul looked as noble and commanding as though he had been a foot taller, with a full beard grown upon his face. He appeared to be master of the situation, and Professor Stoute regarded him with an admiration strongly in contrast with the disgust of his fellow-teacher. The competent captain of the ship is always little less than a miracle of a man to his passengers, especially in a storm, when he is confident and self-reliant. They feel that everything—their very lives, and the lives of those they love—are dependent upon him, and they look up to him as to an oracle of skill and wisdom.
“It’s coming heavier and heavier,” said Terrill, as the Josephine gave a fearful lurch.
“Ay, ay! It’s nothing less than a hurricane,” replied Paul.
“It’s the biggest squall I ever was in,” added Terrill, blowing the salt water out of his mouth, after a pint of spray had slapped him in the face.
“It is kicking up an awful sea.”
“That’s so.”
“Keep your helm hard down, Blair!” shouted Paul to the quartermaster in charge of the wheel.
“She don’t mind it now, sir!” yelled the quartermaster, at the top of his lungs.
“She’s falling off, Mr. Terrill,” added Paul.
“I see she is, sir.”
“We must keep her head up to it, or our decks will be washed. Hard down, Blair!”
“She don’t mind it, sir!”
“Set the close-reefed foresail, Mr. Terrill,” said the captain. “But be careful of the hands.”
Terrill, with the trumpet in his hand, sprang from the life-line to the fife-rail, so as to be nearer to the hands who were to execute the captain’s order. The unpleasant plight of Mr. Hamblin attracted his attention, in spite of the pressure of the emergency. His gyrations, as he bobbed about under the uneasy motions of the vessel, gave him a ludicrous appearance, which even the positive expression of suffering on his face did not essentially mitigate. He had evidently come to a realizing sense of the perils of the sea, and was a pitiful sight to behold.
“Man the foresail outhaul!” shouted Terrill, through his trumpet. “Mr. Martyn!”
“Here, sir!” replied the second lieutenant; but his voice sounded like a whisper in the roar of the hurricane.
“Double the hands on the outhaul!” added Terrill. “Stand by the brails!”
“All ready, forward, sir!” reported Martyn.
“Stand by the fore-sheets!—Mr. Cleats!” continued the executive officer.
“Here, sir!” said the old sailor, who, with the carpenter, was holding on at the weather-rail.
“Will you and Mr. Gage assist at the sheet?”
“Ay, ay, sir! This is heavy work. I hope she’ll carry that foresail.”
“She must carry it, or carry it away,” added Terrill. “We are falling off badly.”
“So we are; it ought to be done,” answered the boatswain, as he began to overhaul the sheets.
It was with the greatest difficulty that any one could stand up on deck. The billows were momentarily increasing, and the Josephine had fallen off into the trough of the sea, and rolled helplessly in the surging waves, so that her fore yard appeared almost to dip in the brine. The outhaul was run out on the deck, and manned by all the hands that could get hold of it. The lee sheet was extended in like manner, and the whole after guard, besides the two adult forward officers, were called to walk away with it.
“O, dear!” groaned Mr. Hamblin, after the vessel had given an unusually heavy lee lurch, the jerk of which had nearly knocked the breath out of his body.
“What’s the matter, your honor?” demanded Cleats, who always pitied a landlubber in a gale.
“Do you think there’s any danger, Mr. Cleats?” gasped the professor.
“Danger! Bless your honor’s heart! there’s never any danger in a good ship, well manned,” replied the veteran tar, as he knocked a kink out of the sheet. “Look at the captain! When he gets scared, you may.”
“It is really terrible!” puffed the learned professor.
“Wouldn’t your honor like the boat now?” growled the boatswain, with a hearty chuckle.
“All ready at the sheets, sir!” screamed Robinson, the fourth lieutenant, who had charge of the waist at quarters.
“Hold on, Mr. Terrill!” shouted the captain, as the Josephine rolled on her lee side till the water bubbled up in her scuppers. “Wait till I give you the word!”
Paul was waiting for a favorable moment, when the blast should lull a little, to set the reefed foresail.
“You must get out of the way, gentlemen!” said Terrill, roaring out the words through his trumpet. “The sheet blocks will knock you over!”
Mr. Stoute unmoored himself, and made a dive at the life-line, where the captain was holding on; but, being rather clumsy in his obesity, he missed his aim, and was thrown into the scuppers. Mr. Cleats went to his assistance, and picked him up while he lay upon his back, with his legs and arms thrown up like a turtle trying to turn over. Mr. Hamblin was not encouraged by this experiment
