Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/100

Descending thereupon into the forehold with his boatswain’s mate to fetch and carry, Boatswain Marsham fell to work overhauling the bolts of sail-cloth and the hanks of cordage and the coils of rope, till he had found a new foresail and laid it under the hatch, and had placed great ropes and such cordage as headlines and marlines and sennets so that a man could lay hands on them in a time of haste and confusion. For the Rose of Devon was heavily pitching and the seas crashed on her three-inch planks with a noise like thunderclaps; and when she lifted on the swell, the water rumbled against her bilge and gurgled away past her run.

Very faintly he heard a sailor’s voice, “The pump is choked.” There was shouting above for a time, then the cry arose, which brought reassurance to all, “Now she sucks,” and again there was quiet.

Climbing through the hatch and passing aft along the main deck, he heard for himself the suck-suck from the pump well, then the rattle of tiller and creak of pintle as the helmsmen eased her off and brought her on to meet a rising sea.

‘Holla, master!”

“Holla, is all laid ready below?”

“Yea! Ropes and cordage and sail are laid ready upon the main deck and secured against the storm.”

‘‘And seemeth she staunch to one in the hold?”

“Yea, master.”

“Then, boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast, for we shall doubtless have need of both ere the day is done. Boy, fetch my cellar of bottles, for I would drink a health to all, fore and aft, and I would have the men served out each a little sack.”

By midday the veering winds had settled in the east