Part 27 (1/2)

”So there is danger?”

”You must not be thinking of that; but it is foolish not to be ready for accidents. And while you are dressing up I will take a look round.”

”Oh, suppose he is aboard! Won't you watch out for him?”

”It's him has to watch out for me on a night like this,” said Jan--”and maybe watch out for more than me.”

Jan went to his room and put on his extra suit of underwear, and over his vest he drew his sweater. From his suit-case he took his mother's photograph and tucked it in his inside pocket. Then he went up again to the top deck and located a life-raft--made the rounds of the boat-deck and located the life-boats.

It was time now to study the storm. The snow was not so thick, but the sea was making and the wind colder and stronger. A gale from the northwest it would be when they were out in the open bay; and, besides the wind getting stronger the sea would be higher. And it was as high now as was good for this old-fas.h.i.+oned side-wheeler with her old-time single engine.

Jan shook his head and, still shaking his head, once more made the rounds of the boat-deck. Eight boats; and each boat might hold twenty-five people--that is, if it was in a mill-pond. But a night like this--how many--even if the running gear were sound? ”No, no,” said Jan to himself, and reinspected the lone life-raft on the top deck. Two cigar-shaped steel air-cylinders with a thin connecting deck was the life-raft. Jan had seen better ones; but a raft, at least, would not capsize.

He descended to the main deck, to where, in the gangway between house and rail, he could find a little quiet and think things over. While there, amids.h.i.+ps, a sea swept up under the paddle-wheel casing. It boomed like a gun. With it went some crackling. Again a booming--again a crackling. The boat broached to. Sea-water was running the length of her deck.

From out of the snow and night another sea came; and this one came straight aboard, roaring as it came. Jan knew what it meant--there is always the first sea by itself. Not long now before there would be another.

And not long before there was another.

And soon there would be a hundred of them, one racing after the other.

And a thousand more of them--only this rust-eaten hull, with her scrollwork topsides, would not hold together long enough to see a thousand of them.

Jan tried to figure out how far they were from the Cape Cod sh.o.r.e. Ten, fifteen, twenty miles. Call it twenty. Jan doubted if she would live to get there, even with the gale behind her.

He walked round the house to look into the lighted saloon. She was there--the poor girl--sitting patiently by herself. Long before this the orchestra had given up playing and only a dozen pa.s.sengers or so were there; but she was the only lone one--in a red plush chair under a cl.u.s.ter of wall-lights. Besides the pa.s.sengers, there was one steward and a colored maid, both staring together through the lighted window.

Jan's feet were wet. He went down to the bar, where he called for a drink of ginger ale and a pint flask of brandy. ”Of your best,” he added.

Leaning against the bar he listened to the loungers there. Four of them were at a table under a window which looked out on the open deck. One was struggling in a loud voice with what should have been a funny story.

His companions neglected no chance to laugh, but after each laugh they hastily sipped their drinks. At intervals the wind would shriek and at each shriek they would look past each other with exaggerated calmness; but when the sea pounded the hull, and the spray splashed thickly against the window over their heads, they would look up at the window or across at the door. And when the boat would roll down and, rolling, threaten to dump them all on the floor, they would grab the table and yell ”Whoa!” or ”Wait a second!” with just a suggestion of hysteria in their throats; and somebody would call out, ”Go on with the story, Joe!”

and the story-teller would hasten to resume.

Jan turned to the bartender, who was filling waiting stewards' hurried orders calmly if not impa.s.sively. After every heavy sea he would stop pouring or mixing to glance with unaffected interest at the beams above him or the door opening onto the deck. He was an undersized man with lean, pale cheeks, a hard chin, and a bright, cold eye. Once he looked fairly at Jan and Jan looked fairly at him. It was like an introduction.

”You a sea-going man?” he asked.

”I used to go to sea,” admitted Jan.

”I thought so. But those there,”--he lowered his voice and leaned across the bar to Jan,--”they don't know whether this is a real bad gale or just the reg'lar thing. One of 'em says a while ago: 'This is the kind of weather I like!' I bet it's his first trip. But most of the pa.s.sengers, the stewards tell me, are turned in, trying to forget it.”

”Better for 'em,” said Jan.

”Maybe so, too; but what do you think of it?”

Jan shook his head. ”I will be glad when morning comes.”

”Same here. I've seen it as bad as this a couple of times before.” He picked up Jan's bill. ”But this old shoe box ain't getting any younger.

Here's your brandy. It's good stuff--don't be afraid of it. Seventy-five and fifteen--ninety.”