A Son of the Sea by John Arthur Barry — Read

WHEN, late in the afternoon, and after a good sleep, Torre went on deck he found the Enchantress hove to under a lower main-topsail and a fore- topmast-stay-sail, and making fine weather of it, hardly wetting her decks. But the gale still blew from the same quarter with unabated vigour and spite. And Torre, as he stood near the lashed wheel and stared out over the ceaseless procession of great waves marching in endless ranks, threatening, roaring, sullen, breaking in thunder against the ship only to hurl harmless spindrift at her mastheads; as he watched these, and listened to the shrill steady yelling of the wind through the rigging, he thanked God in his heart for their almost miraculous escape from the sinking Mary and from the crazy boat. Sam was on the poop. The rest were asleep. The reversed Ensign had been hauled down, and all the running gear tautened; yards braced to the wind; every sail looked to, and its gaskets re-passed. And now, Torre found himself appreciatively gazing along the decks of a fine clipper barque of some 1200 tons, with high, sheltering bulwarks, teak decking fore and aft, iron lower masts, and yards able to spread, from the squareness of them, a great show of canvas. All her furniture, such as wheel, binnacle, skylights, deckhouses, capstans, etc., etc., were solidly handsome, and Torre guessed that, even in these days of depreciated "sailers," the Enchantress was a very valuable ship.

"An' jist to think o' them cussed Dagoes a-runnin' away an' leavin' of 'er like they did!" said Sam, rolling up with a short pipe, bowl down, between his teeth, but from which, in spite of that precaution, the gale robbed, now and then, live sparks and sent them flying to leeward. "Well, well, it's bin a good thing fer us, an' I expec' there's salwage outer this job. She's a rale slap-up sort ov a ship. One comfut, them jokers as cleared out in sich a hurry, an' leavin' the gal to drownd an' burn, is pritty well drownded themselves now—an' p'raps burnin', too," he added reflectively. "Would ye believe it? They must ha' hopped outer their bunks, by the look o' things in the fok'sle, an' straight into the boat."