"If the Conomo has got her grit with her and lives through it," said
Captain Candage, "we'll be here to give her three cheers when it's over.
And if she goes down we'll be on deck to flap her a fare-ye-well."
In that spirit they snugged everything on board the schooner and
prepared to defy the storm. It came in the night, with a howl of blast
and a fusillade of sleet like bird-shot. It stamped upon the throbbing
sea and made tumult in water and air. At midnight they were wallowing
with only a forestays'l that was iced to the hardness of boiler plate.
But though the vast surges flung their mighty arms in efforts to grasp
the schooner, she dodged and danced on her nimble way and frustrated
their malignity. Her men did not sleep; they thawed themselves in relays
and swarmed on deck again. Each seemed to be animated by personal and
vital interest.
"You can't buy crews like this one with wages," observed Captain
Candage, icicled beard close to Mayo's ear. "I reckon it was about as my
Polly said--you cast bread on the waters when you took their part on Hue
and Cry."
The young man, clinging to a cleat and watching the struggles of their
craft, waved a mittened hand to signify that he agreed. In that riot
of tempest and ruck of sea he was straining his eyes, trying to get a
glimpse of the hulk on Razee. But the schooner had worked her way too
far off to the west, pressed to leeward by the relentless palm of the
storm.
Then at last came morning, an opaque dawn that was shrouded with
swirling snow, and all was hidden from their eyes except the tumbling
mountains of water which swept to them, threatened to engulf them,
and then melted under their keel. The captains could only guess at the
extent of their drift, but when the wind quieted after midday, and they
were able to get sail on the schooner, they were in no doubt as to the
direction in which the steamer must lie. They began their sloshing ratch
back to east.
Mayo braved nipping wind and iced rigging and took the glass to the main
crosstrees. He remained there though he was chilled through and through.
At last, near the horizon's rim, he spied a yeasty tumult of the sea,
marking some obstruction at which the waves were tussling. In the midst
of this white welter there was a shape that was almost spectral under
the gray skies. The little schooner pitched so ferociously that only
occasionally could he bring this object into the range of the glass. But
he made sure at last. He clutched the glass and tobogganed to deck down
the slippery shrouds.