Two men
toiled at the wheel, relieving in pairs every half-hour, and in the
face of the cold they streamed with sweat long ere their half-hour
shift was up.
Mr. Pike is of the elder race of men. His endurance is prodigious.
Watch and watch, and all watches, he held the poop.
"I never dreamed of it," he told me, at midnight, as the great gusts
tore by and as we listened for our lighter spars to smash aloft and
crash upon the deck. "I thought my last whirling sailing was past.
And here we are! Here we are!
"Lord! Lord! I sailed third mate in the little Vampire before you
were born. Fifty-six men before the mast, and the last Jack of 'em
an able seaman. And there were eight boys, an' bosuns that was
bosuns, an' sail-makers an' carpenters an' stewards an' passengers to
jam the decks. An' three driving mates of us, an' Captain Brown, the
Little Wonder. He didn't weigh a hundredweight, an' he drove us--he
drove US, three drivin' mates that learned from him what drivin' was.
"It was knock down and drag out from the start.
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