It was nine o’clock, but the light was clear, and a long, slate-green swell7 slightly crisped with ripples8 rolled up out of the south; to the northwest a broad stripe of angry saffron, against which the sea-tops cut, glowed along the horizon; but the east was dim, and steeped in a hard, cold blue. Shadowy mountains were faintly visible high up against the sky; and, below, a few rocky islets rose, blurred9 by blue haze11, out of the heaving sea.
The sloop12 rolled lazily, her boom groaning13 and the tall, white mainsail alternately swelling14 out and emptying with a harsh slapping of canvas and a clatter15 of shaken blocks. Above it the topsail raked in a wide arc across the sky. Silky lines of water ran back from the stern, there was a soft gurgle at the bows; Jimmy computed16 that she was slipping along at about three miles an hour.
“It doesn’t look promising,” Jimmy answered. “If time wasn’t an object, I’d like the topsail down. We’ll have wind before morning.”
“That’s my opinion; but time is an object. When the cost of every day out is an item to be considered, we must drive her. Have you reckoned up what we’re paying every week to the ship-chandler fellow who found us the cables and diving gear?”
“I have the cost of everything down in my notebook; although I will confess that I was mildly surprised at myself for taking the trouble. If I’d occasionally made a few simple calculations at home and acted on them, the chances are that I shouldn’t be here now.” Bethune made a gesture of disgust. “Halibut boiled and halibut fried begins to pall21 on one; but this is far better than our quarters in Vancouver, and they were a big improvement on those I had in Victoria. I daresay it was natural I should stick to the few monthly dollars as long as possible, but it will be some time before I forget that hotel. I never quite got used to the two wet public towels beside the row of sloppy22 wash-basins, and the gramophone going full blast in the dirty dining-room; and the long evening to be dawdled24 through in the lounge was worst of all. You have, perhaps, seen the hard-faced toughs lolling back with their feet on the radiator25 pipes before the windows, the heaps of dead flies that are seldom swept up, the dreary26, comfortless squalor. Imagine three or four hours of it every night, with only a last-week’s Colonist27 to while away the time!”
“I should imagine things would be better in a railroad or logging camp.”
“Very much so, though they’re not hotbeds of luxury. The trouble was that I couldn’t come down to Victoria and hold my job. Once or twice when the pay days approximated, I ran it pretty fine; and I’ve a vivid memory of walking seventy miles in two days over a newly made wagon28 trail. The softer parts had been graded with ragged29 stones from the hillside, the drier bits were rutted soil—it needed a surgical30 operation to get my stockings off.”
“That’s true,” said Bethune. “I can see it now, but I had a daunting experience of clearing land and laying railroad track. Dragging forty-foot rails about through melting snow, with the fumes32 of giant-powder hanging among the rocks and nauseating33 you, is exhausting work, and handspiking giant logs up skids34 in rain that never stops is worse. The logs have a way of slipping back and smashing the tenderfoot’s ribs35. I suppose this made me a coward; and, in a sense, the allowance was less of a favor than a right. The money that provided it has been a long time in the family; I am the oldest son; and while I can’t claim to have been a model, I had no serious vices36 and had committed no crime. If my relatives chose to banish37 me, there seemed no reason why they shouldn’t pay for the privilege.”
Jimmy agreed that something might be said for his comrade’s point of view.
“Now I stand on my own feet,” Bethune went on, with a carefree laugh; “and while it’s hard to predict the end of this adventure, the present state of things is good enough for me. Is anything better than being afloat in a staunch craft that’s entirely38 at your command?”
Jimmy acquiesced39 heartily40 as he glanced about. Sitting to windward, he could see the gently rounded deck run forward to the curve of the lifted bows, and, above them, the tall, hollowed triangle of the jib. The arched cabin-top led forward in flowing lines, and though there were patches on plank41 and canvas, all his eye rested on was of harmonious42 outline. The Cetacea was small and low in the water, but she was fast and safe, and Jimmy had already come to feel a certain love for her. Their success depended upon her seaworthiness, and he thought she would not fail them.
“I like the boat; but I’ve been mending gear all day, and it’s my turn below,” he said.
The narrow cabin that ran from the cockpit bulkhead to the stem was cumbered with dismantled43 diving pumps and gear, but there was a locker44 on each side on which one could sleep. It was, moreover, permeated45 with the smell of stale tobacco smoke, tarred hemp46, and fish, but Jimmy had put up with worse odors in the Mercantile Marine47. Lying down, fully48 dressed, on a locker, he saw Moran’s shadowy form, wrapped in old oilskins, on the opposite locker, rise above his level and sink as the Cetacea rocked them with a rhythmic49 swing. The water lapped noisily against the planks50, and now and then there was a groaning of timber and a sharp clatter of blocks; but Jimmy soon grew drowsy51 and noticed nothing.
He was awakened52 rudely by a heavy blow, and found he had fallen off the locker and struck one of the pump castings. Half dazed and badly shaken, as he was, it was a few moments before he got upon his knees—one could not stand upright under the low cabin-top. It was very dark, Jimmy could not see the hatch, and the Cetacea appeared to have fallen over on her beam-ends. A confused uproar53 was going on above: the thud of heavy water striking the deck, a furious thrashing of loose canvas, and the savage54 scream of wind. Bethune’s voice came faintly through the din23, and he seemed to be calling for help.
Realizing that it was time for action, Jimmy pulled himself together and with difficulty made his way to the cockpit, where he found it hard to see anything for the first minute. The spray that drove across the boat beat into his face and blinded him; but he made out that she was pressed down with most of her lee deck in the water, while white cascades55 that swept its uplifted windward side poured into the cockpit. The tall mainsail slanted56 up into thick darkness, but it was no longer thrashing, and Jimmy was given an impression of furious speed by the way the half visible seas raced past.
He understood Bethune to say that this would involve the loss of the mast unless the others were ready to shorten canvas quickly.
Jimmy scrambled58 forward through the water and loosed the peak-halyard. The head of the sail swung down and blew out to leeward59, banging threateningly, and he saw that the half-lowered topsail hung beneath it. This promised to complicate60 matters; but Moran was already endeavoring to change the jib for a smaller one, and Jimmy sprang to his assistance. Though the sail was not linked to a masthead stay, it would not run in; and when Bethune luffed the boat into the wind, the loose canvas swept across the bows, swelling like a balloon and emptying with a shock that threatened to snap the straining mast. It was obvious to the men who knelt in the water dragging frantically61 at a rope that something drastic must be done; but both were drenched62 and half blinded and had been suddenly roused from sleep. The boat was large enough to make her gear heavy to handle, and yet not so large as to obviate63 the need for urgent haste when struck with all her canvas set by a savage squall. Though they recognized this, Jimmy and his comrade paused a few moments to gather breath. The jib, however, must be hauled down; and with a hoarse64 shout to Moran, Jimmy lowered himself from the bowsprit until he felt the wire bobstay under his feet.
The Cetacea plunged65 into the seas, burying him to the waist, but he made his way out-board with the canvas buffeting66 his head until he seized an iron ring. It cost him a determined67 effort to wrench68 it loose so it could run in, and when, at last, the sail swept behind him he felt the blood warm on his lacerated hand. Then he crawled on board, and when he and Moran had set a smaller jib it was high time to reef the mainsail; but they spent a few moments in gathering69 strength for the task.
She was down on her beam-ends, with the sea breaking over her. Jimmy could not imagine what Bethune was doing at the wheel. The foam70 that swirled71 past close under the boom on her depressed72 side lapped to the cabin top; it looked as if she were rolling over. They felt helpless and shaken, impotent to master the canvas that was drowning her. But the fight must be made; and, rousing themselves for the effort, they groped for the halyards. The head of the sail sank lower; gasping73, and straining every muscle, they hauled its foot down, and then Jimmy, leaning out, buried to the knees in rushing foam, with his breast on the boom, knotted the reef-points in. It was done at last. Rising more upright, she shook off some of the water.
Moran turned to Bethune, who was leaning as if exhausted74 on his helm, and demanded why he had not luffed the craft, which would have eased their work. Then the dripping man showed them that the boat they carried on deck had been washed against the wheel so that he could not pull the spokes75 round. They moved her, and when Bethune regained76 control of the sloop, he told them what had happened, in disjointed gasps77.
“Wind freshened—but I—held her at it. Then there was a—burst of rain and I—let the topsail go—thinking the breeze would lighten again. Instead of that—it whipped round ahead—screaming—and I called for you.”
Conversation was difficult amid the roar of the sea, with the spray lashing78 them and their words blowing away, but Jimmy made himself heard.
“Where’s the compass?”
“In the cockpit, or overboard—the dory broke it off.”
Moran felt in the water that washed about their feet and, picking something up, crept into the cabin, where a pale glow broke out. It disappeared in a minute or two and he came back.
“Binnacle lamp’s busted,” he reported. “She’s pointing about east.”
“Inshore,” said Jimmy. “When you’re ready, we’ll have her round.”
She would not come. Overpowered by wind and sea, she hung up for a few moments, and then fell off on her previous course. They tried it twice, not daring to wear her round the opposite way; and afterward79 they sat in the slight shelter of the coaming, conscious that there was nothing more they could do.
“She may keep off the beach until daylight,” Jimmy observed hopefully; “then we’ll see where we are.”
The glance he cast forward did not show him much. The long swell had rapidly changed into tumbling combers that rolled down upon the laboring80 sloop out of the dark. As she lurched over them, the small patch of storm-jib swept up, showing the sharply slanted strip of mainsail; but the rest of her was hidden by spray and rushing foam. She was sailing very fast, close-hauled, and was rushing toward the beach. Jimmy could feel her tremble as she pitched into the seas.
Morning seemed a very long time in coming; but at last the darkness grew less thick. The foam got whiter and the gray bulk of the rollers more solid and black, as they leaped, huge and threatening, out of the obscurity. Then the sky began to whiten in the east, and the weary men anxiously turned their eyes shoreward as they shivered in the biting cold of dawn. After a time, during which the horizon steadily81 receded82, a gray and misty83 blur10 appeared on the starboard hand, and, now that they could see the combers, they got the Cetacea round. As she headed offshore84 a red flush spread across the sky, and rocks and pines grew into shape to the east. Then a break in the coastline where they could see shining water instead of foam indicated an island; and, getting her round again, they stood in cautiously, because she could make nothing to windward through the steep, white seas outshore. Reeling before them, with lee deck in the water as she bore away, she opened up the sound, and presently her crew watched the rollers crumble85 on a boulder-sprinkled point. Moving shoreward majestically86 in ordered ranks, the waves hove themselves up when they met the shoal and dissolved into frothy cataracts87. It was an impressive spectacle, and the sloop looked by contrast extremely small. Still, she drove on, and Jimmy, standing88 at the wheel, gazed steadily ahead.
“We’ll have to chance finding water, because the lead’s no guide,” he said. “If there’s anything in the sound, it will be a steep-to rock.”
She lurched in past the point, rolling, spray-swept, with two rags of drenched canvas set. As Jimmy luffed her into the lee of the island there was a sudden change. The water, smoothing to a measured heave, glittered with tiny ripples; the slanted mast rose upright; and the sloop forged on toward a shelving beach, through variable flaws. Then, as she slowed and the canvas flapped, the anchor was flung over, and the rattle89 of running chain sent a cloud of birds circling above the rocks.
Half an hour later the men were busy cooking breakfast, and soon afterward they were fast asleep; but the night’s breeze had made a change in their relations. Their mettle90 had been rudely tested and had not failed. Henceforward it was not to be mere91 mutual92 interest that held them together, but a stronger though more elusive93 bond. They were comrades by virtue94 of a mutual respect and trust.
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1
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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3
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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5
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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7
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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8
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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12
sloop
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| n.单桅帆船 | |
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13
groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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14
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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15
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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16
computed
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| adj.[医]计算的，使用计算机的v.计算，估算( compute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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daunting
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| adj.使人畏缩的 | |
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19
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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20
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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22
sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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24
dawdled
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| v.混（时间）( dawdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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26
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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colonist
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| n.殖民者，移民 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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forfeit
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| vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物 | |
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32
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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nauseating
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| adj.令人恶心的，使人厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的现在分词 ) | |
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34
skids
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| n.滑向一侧( skid的名词复数 )；滑道；滚道；制轮器v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的第三人称单数 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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35
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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36
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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banish
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| vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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42
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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43
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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44
locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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45
permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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46
hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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47
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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48
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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50
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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51
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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52
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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53
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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54
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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55
cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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56
slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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57
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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58
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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59
leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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60
complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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61
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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62
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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63
obviate
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| v.除去，排除，避免，预防 | |
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64
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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65
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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66
buffeting
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| 振动 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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68
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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69
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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70
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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71
swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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75
spokes
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| n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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82
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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offshore
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| adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面 | |
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crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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