Wide Courses Part 26

"I was just trying on the new hat I bought with the money you sent up last night--and a shirtwaist and a lovely long coat. How did you get through the night?"

"Fine! I went over to the dry dock and turned into a bunk on the schooner."

She made a mouth at the mirror. "That was no place to sleep. You should have taken a comfortable room at the hotel."

Jan was silent.

"Yes, you should. I'll be right out."

She came out, but with her face veiled, and clung close to him as they walked the deck. Jan sniffed the air.

"Snow, I think," he said.

"Meaning a storm? I was never in a storm. Are they terrible?"

"A storm is nothing," said Jan, "when you get used to them. But will we go in to supper?"

They went in. The boat was now outside the harbor and pitching slightly.

She did not eat much and at length laid down her knife and fork."

"Sea-sick?" asked Jan.

"No. I must be too frightened to be sea-sick."

"Frightened of what?"

"Of him." She leaned across the table. "I'm sure I saw him. Yes--spying through the window of my room just before I left it just now."

Jan tranquilly went on eating. "He can't hurt you aboard a boat."

"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 pa.s.sengers had not tramped it down. They sought the open s.p.a.ce 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 m.u.f.fled-up pa.s.senger who came near them.

Not many pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed; and almost with the thought, catching sight of a lurking man's figure in the pa.s.sageway 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.u.mped into them. "This is no place for pa.s.sengers!" 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 pa.s.sing 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 offsh.o.r.e 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 b.u.mpin' over the rocks of this sh.o.r.e 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."