We had heard ominous stories about past
voyages. The cook (technically a seaman, but in reality no sailor)--the
cook, when unstrung by some misfortune, such as the rolling over of a
saucepan, would mutter gloomily while he wiped the floor:--"There! Look
at what she has done! Some voy'ge she will drown all hands! You'll see
if she won't." To which the steward, snatching in the galley a moment
to draw breath in the hurry of his worried life, would remark
philosophically:--"Those that see won't tell, anyhow. I don't want to
see it." We derided those fears. Our hearts went out to the old man when
he pressed her hard so as to make her hold her own, hold to every inch
gained to windward; when he made her, under reefed sails, leap obliquely
at enormous waves. The men, knitted together aft into a ready group by
the first sharp order of an officer coming to take charge of the deck in
bad weather:--"Keep handy the watch," stood admiring her valiance. Their
eyes blinked in the wind; their dark faces were wet with drops of water
more salt and bitter than human tears; beards and moustaches, soaked,
hung straight and dripping like fine seaweed.
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