You can see yourself, sir. It's an after-sail.
All its tendency is to throw her stern off and her bow up to it. And
if it ever happens, sir, if she ever gets away from the wheel for two
seconds and broaches to . . . "
"Then what?" I asked, or, rather, shouted; for all conversation had
to be shouted close to ear in that blast of gale.
He shrugged his shoulders, and all of him was eloquent with the
unuttered, unmistakable word-finish."
At eight this morning Margaret and I struggled up to the poop. And
there was that indomitable, iron old man. He had never left the deck
all night. His eyes were bright, and he appeared in the pink of
well-being. He rubbed his hands and chuckled greeting to us, and
took up his reminiscences.
"In '51, on this same stretch, Miss West, the Flying Cloud, in
twenty-four hours, logged three hundred and seventy-four miles under
her topgallant-sails. That was sailing. She broke the record, that
day, for sail an' steam."
"And what are we averaging, Mr. Pike?" Margaret queried, while her
eyes were fixed on the main deck, where continually one rail and then
the other dipped under the ocean and filled across from rail to rail,
only to spill out and take in on the next roll.
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