"I don't mind that, so he won't hurt you."
Jan shook his head. "He won't because he can't on here without getting
caught."
They stepped outside at last. Cozy enough in the dining-room; but
outside the snow was now thick enough to show white on deck where the
passengers had not tramped it down. They sought the open space in the
bow--Jan to see how it looked ahead and Mrs. Goles to feel the fresh
gale blowing in her face.
"It's a north-east snow-storm," said Jan, "and coming thicker. But no
danger. No--no danger," he repeated quickly, with a glance at her.
"It's not danger of a storm I fear," she said simply. She was peering,
not ahead at the darkening, rising sea but at the form and face of every
muffled-up passenger who came near them.
Not many passengers were venturing onto the open deck; and those who did
were wrapped high and close, with hardly more than their eyes showing
out. "If he comes on us he will come like that--coat collar to his ears
and hat over his eyes," she thought as one after another so wrapped
appeared and passed; and almost with the thought, catching sight of a
lurking man's figure in the passageway between the paddle-box and the
outside row of state-rooms, she added aloud: "Let us go up on the top
deck."
"It will be pretty cold and rough for you up there," suggested Jan.
"Never mind; let us go there." A man could not very well hide on the
more open top deck, was what she had in mind.
They could hardly keep their feet on the top deck. An officer in passing
warned them sharply to be careful. She looked after him scornfully. "As
if you weren't more at home on the sea than any of them!" she said
proudly.
The wind on the top deck was blowing a gale. The snow was pouring down.
Another officer bumped into them. "This is no place for passengers!" he
yelled. "Better go below and inside the house!" And he hurried on.
"Excited, ain't he?" said Jan. "But maybe we better go below too. But
let's go round by the lee side--this way."
In passing the pilot-house a window above them was thrown open and a
man's face thrust through, and a man's voice said:
"We'll never make Port Rock to-night, not against this gale and snow.
And no use trying to see anything ahead."
Jan peered up through the dark and the snow to see who it might be.
Against the light in the pilot-house he could distinguish the head and
shoulders of the captain.
"Then we'd better put in somewhere for the night, hadn't we?" Jan knew
that for the mate's voice.
"Put in where?"
"I don't know--Gloucester, maybe?"
"Gloucester? And how does Gloucester bear now?--tell me that. And how
does any port bear now?--tell me that, too. Suppose we did know, would
you try to take her into Gloucester harbor on a night like this?
Gloucester!"
"Sh-h! There's something," said the other voice.
The voices were hushed. Two long moans came over the sea.
"Wait for them again. And time 'em." The captain's voice that.
Mrs. Goles stepped closer to Jan. "Does it mean there's danger to the
ship?" she asked in a low voice in Jan's ear.
"No, no. But listen!"
One long moan and one short moan came fitfully over the sea.
"Thatcher's Island steam-whistle," said the captain's voice. "An'
bearing so." So thick was the night with snow that Jan had to strain his
sight to make out the mittened hand and coatsleeve stretching out
through the window over his head.
Jan felt the wind whipping him on the other side, and with that there
came from the pilot-house: "Well, if that ain't the devil's own luck!
Here's the wind makin' into the north-west and the chief whistlin' up
half-steam's all he can keep on her!"
"Ain't it always something wrong! I told 'em about them boilers--that
they been leakin' right along. What will we do?"
"Only one thing to do now. Run her before it. Besides, she'll be blown
offshore soon now. Run her across the bay. South-south-east. She ought
to fetch Provincetown."
"Yes, sir. But when we get out from under the lee of the land what'll
happen?"
"I don't know; but I do know what'll happen to her bumpin' over the
rocks of this shore on a night like this!"
Jan touched Mrs. Goles's arm. "We better go below now, I think. And you
better go to your room and wrap up in any warm clothes you have--two
pairs of stockings, if you have them, and things like that. To be ready
for accidents, you know. And wait for me in the saloon."
"So there is danger?"
"You must not be thinking of that; but it is foolish not to be ready for
accidents. And while you are dressing up I will take a look round."
"Oh, suppose he is aboard! Won't you watch out for him?"
"It's him has to watch out for me on a night like this," said Jan--"and
maybe watch out for more than me."
* * * * *
Jan went to his room and put on his extra suit of underwear, and over
his vest he drew his sweater. From his suit-case he took his mother's
photograph and tucked it in his inside pocket. Then he went up again to
the top deck and located a life-raft--made the rounds of the boat-deck
and located the life-boats.
It was time now to study the storm. The snow was not so thick, but the
sea was making and the wind colder and stronger. A gale from the
northwest it would be when they were out in the open bay; and, besides
the wind getting stronger the sea would be higher. And it was as high
now as was good for this old-fashioned side-wheeler with her old-time
single engine.
Jan shook his head and, still shaking his head, once more made the
rounds of the boat-deck. Eight boats; and each boat might hold
twenty-five people--that is, if it was in a mill-pond. But a night like
this--how many--even if the running gear were sound? "No, no," said Jan
to himself, and reinspected the lone life-raft on the top deck. Two
cigar-shaped steel air-cylinders with a thin connecting deck was the
life-raft. Jan had seen better ones; but a raft, at least, would not
capsize.
He descended to the main deck, to where, in the gangway between house
and rail, he could find a little quiet and think things over. While
there, amidships, a sea swept up under the paddle-wheel casing. It
boomed like a gun. With it went some crackling. Again a booming--again a
crackling. The boat broached to. Sea-water was running the length of her
deck.
From out of the snow and night another sea came; and this one came
straight aboard, roaring as it came. Jan knew what it meant--there is
always the first sea by itself. Not long now before there would be
another.
And not long before there was another.
And soon there would be a hundred of them, one racing after the other.
And a thousand more of them--only this rust-eaten hull, with her
scrollwork topsides, would not hold together long enough to see a
thousand of them.
Jan tried to figure out how far they were from the Cape Cod shore. Ten,
fifteen, twenty miles. Call it twenty. Jan doubted if she would live to
get there, even with the gale behind her.
He walked round the house to look into the lighted saloon. She was
there--the poor girl--sitting patiently by herself. Long before this the
orchestra had given up playing and only a dozen passengers or so were
there; but she was the only lone one--in a red plush chair under a
cluster of wall-lights. Besides the passengers, there was one steward
and a colored maid, both staring together through the lighted window.
Jan's feet were wet. He went down to the bar, where he called for a
drink of ginger ale and a pint flask of brandy. "Of your best," he
added.
Leaning against the bar he listened to the loungers there. Four of them
were at a table under a window which looked out on the open deck. One
was struggling in a loud voice with what should have been a funny story.
His companions neglected no chance to laugh, but after each laugh they
hastily sipped their drinks. At intervals the wind would shriek and at
each shriek they would look past each other with exaggerated calmness;
but when the sea pounded the hull, and the spray splashed thickly
against the window over their heads, they would look up at the window or
across at the door. And when the boat would roll down and, rolling,
threaten to dump them all on the floor, they would grab the table and
yell "Whoa!" or "Wait a second!" with just a suggestion of hysteria in
their throats; and somebody would call out, "Go on with the story, Joe!"
and the story-teller would hasten to resume.
Jan turned to the bartender, who was filling waiting stewards' hurried
orders calmly if not impassively. After every heavy sea he would stop
pouring or mixing to glance with unaffected interest at the beams above
him or the door opening onto the deck. He was an undersized man with
lean, pale cheeks, a hard chin, and a bright, cold eye. Once he looked
fairly at Jan and Jan looked fairly at him. It was like an introduction.
"You a sea-going man?" he asked.
"I used to go to sea," admitted Jan.
"I thought so. But those there,"--he lowered his voice and leaned across
the bar to Jan,--"they don't know whether this is a real bad gale or
just the reg'lar thing. One of 'em says a while ago: 'This is the kind
of weather I like!' I bet it's his first trip. But most of the
passengers, the stewards tell me, are turned in, trying to forget it."
"Better for 'em," said Jan.
"Maybe so, too; but what do you think of it?"