FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137  
138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   >>   >|  
say to me; "he can't do nuffin', I'se like to come an' look after um cabin for young massa, when I'se in watch below." Then, the good-natured fellow would scrub away energetically at the floor, deluged with water, and fix up things straight for me; making the place far more neat and tidy in five minutes than Harry the mulatto could have done if he had been all day over the job. He eclipsed the steward in his own line, while proving himself as good as any seaman in the ship. Jake was a handy chap, indeed, all round, for he was of very considerable assistance to Cuffee in the galley when the stormy weather interfered with the cooking; so, Captain Miles did not object to his coming to look after me in this way. He "winked at it," as he said. During the evening of the day on which the wind shifted round to the north-west, the sky somewhat cleared and the night was fine and starlight; but the gale seemed to blow with all the greater vehemence as the clouds dispersed. It increased to the strength of a hurricane towards one o'clock in the morning, when, the fore-topsail and mizzen staysail blowing away, the ship had to content herself with running under bare poles, careering through the water faster than ever. She had certainly never realised such speed since she had been launched. I was awake when Captain Miles came down at this time to consult the barometer, and I could hear what he said to Jackson, who had accompanied him below for something or other, the two talking together just outside my bunk. "I'm sure I can't make it out at all," the captain said in rather a hopeless way. "Here's the glass keeping as high as possible, and yet the gale shows no token of lessening. What can it mean?" "These cyclones are queer things, sir," responded Jackson. "I was in two while in a China trader, and sha'n't forget them in a hurry." "I could understand it," continued Captain Miles as if reasoning with himself, "keeping on like this if we were in the Gulf of Mexico now, for it looks like what they call a norther there; but I've never heard of one of those winds being met in the Atlantic." "It's something out of the common, sir," observed Jackson. "It's a cyclone, or hurricane, if I ever was in one, and I don't see as how we can do better than we are doing, sir." "Well, we simply can't," said the captain. "We are running before it as hard as we can with only our bare sticks showing, for the vessel won't stand
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137  
138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Captain
 

Jackson

 

running

 

captain

 

keeping

 
hurricane
 
things
 

talking

 
simply
 

hopeless


launched

 

consult

 
barometer
 

sticks

 
accompanied
 

vessel

 
showing
 
understand
 

continued

 

forget


Atlantic

 

reasoning

 

norther

 

Mexico

 

lessening

 

responded

 

trader

 

common

 

observed

 

cyclones


cyclone

 
clouds
 

eclipsed

 

steward

 

mulatto

 
minutes
 

considerable

 
assistance
 

Cuffee

 
proving

seaman
 

natured

 
nuffin
 
fellow
 

straight

 

making

 
energetically
 

deluged

 
galley
 

stormy