“Well, I will go below now, Hawkins,”
Frank shouted back. “It is enough to blow
the hair off one’s head.
“Come down, George, with me. You can be
of no use here.”
For eight hours the Osprey struggled with the storm.
The sea swept over her decks, and the dinghy was smashed
into fragments, but the yacht rode with far greater
ease than an ordinary vessel would have done, as,
save for her bare mast, the wind had no hold upon her.
There were no spars with weight of furled sails to
catch the wind and hold her down; she was in perfect
trim, and her sharp bows met the waves like a wedge,
and suffered them to glide past her with scarce a
shock, while the added buoyancy gained by reefing the
bowsprit and getting the anchors below lifted her over
seas that, as they approached, seemed as if they would
make a clean sweep over her.
From time to time Frank went up for a few minutes,
lashing himself to the runner to windward. The
three men at the helm were all sitting up, lashed
to cleats, and sheltering themselves as far as they
could by the bulwarks. Movement toward them was
impossible. Beyond a wave of the hand, no communication
could be held.
Frank could not have ventured out had he not, before
going down below for the first time, stretched a rope
across the deck in front of the companion, so that
before going out he obtained a firm grasp of it, and
was by its assistance able to reach the side safely.
Each time he went out four of the crew from below followed
him and relieved those lashed to the shrouds forward.
The skipper was carrying out the plan he had decided
on, and the foresail was hoisted a few feet, the Osprey
by its aid gradually edging her way out from the centre
of the tornado. The hands as they came down received
a stiff glass of grog, and were told to turn in at
once. Two hours after the storm broke Purvis came
down for a few minutes.
“She is doing splendidly, sir,” he said.
“I would not have believed if I had not seen
it, that any craft of her size could have gone through
such a sea as this and shipped so little water.
We have had a few big ’uns come on board, but
in general she goes over them like a duck. It
is hard work forward. You have got to keep your
back to it, for you can hardly get your breath if you
face it. If it was not for the lashings, it would
blow you right away.
“I have been at sea in gales that we thought
were big ones, but nothing like this. Of course,
with our heavy ballast and bare poles, she don’t
lie over much. It is the sea and not the wind
that affects her, and her low free board is all in
her favour. But I believe a ship with a high
side and yards and top hamper would be blown down
on her beam ends and kept there.”
“Do you think that it blows as hard as it did,
Purvis?”
“There ain’t much difference, sir; but
I do think there ain’t quite so much weight
in it. I expect we are working our way out of
it. We have been twice round the compass.
It is lucky we had not got down among the islands
before we caught it. I would not give much for
our chances if we had been there, for these gales gradually
wear themselves out as they get farther from the islands.”
