The forenoon dragged on in
a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel
a rash but an obliged experiment--rash as a forlorn
hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a
burning staircase. Noon was made; the captain dined on
his day's work, and I on watching him; and our place
was entered on the chart with a meticulous precision
which seemed to me half pitiful and half absurd, since
the next eye to behold that sheet of paper might be the
eye of an exploring fish. One o'clock came, then two;
the captain gloomed and chafed, as he held to the
coaming of the house, and if ever I saw dormant murder
in man's eye, it was in his. God help the hand that
should have disobeyed him!
Of a sudden he turned towards the mate, who was doing
his trick at the wheel.
"Two points on the port bow," I heard him say; and he
took the wheel himself.
Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet
hand, watched a chance as the vessel lunged up hill,
and got to the main rigging, where he swarmed aloft.
Up and up I watched him go, hanging on at every ugly
plunge, gaining with every lull of the schooner's
movement, until, clambering into the cross-trees and
clinging with one arm around the masts, I could see him
take one comprehensive sweep of the south-westerly
horizon.
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