Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite.Joshua Higgins by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity, he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish and cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bully over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain Cullen, the law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the incarnation of a dozen bucko mates.In that wild weather at the southern end of the earth, Joshua Higgins ceased washing.His grimy face usually robbed George Dorety of what little appetite he managed to accumulate.Ordinarily this lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye and vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, to the exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto.Whether the mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing.Later on, when 5O degrees south in the Pacific had been reached, Joshua Higgins would wash his face very abruptly.In the meantime, at the cabin table, where gray twilight alternated with lamplight while the lamps were being filled, George Dorety sat between the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena, and wondered why God had made them.The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a true sailor and a man, but George Dorety did not have the solace of his company, for he ate by himself, solitary, when they had finished.
On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life and headlong movement.On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off before a howling south-easter.Nothing was set but the lower topsails and the foresail.It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen knots, as Mr.Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck.And it was all westing.She was going around the Horn at last...if the wind held.
Mr.Turner looked happy.The end of the struggle was in sight.But Captain Cullen did not look happy.He scowled at Dorety in passing.
Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind.
He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west.So he walked softly before God, smothering his joy down under scowls and muttered curses, and, so, fooling God, for God was the only thing in the universe of which Dan Cullen was afraid.
All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.
Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning she had covered three hundred and fifty miles.If the wind held, she would make around.If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere between south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and be no better off than she had been seven weeks before.And on Sunday morning the wind was failing.The big sea was going down and running smooth.Both watches were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the ship could stand it.
And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before God, smoking a big cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind delighted him, while down underneath he was raging against God for taking the life out of the blessed wind.Make westing! So he would, if God would only leave him alone.
Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if they would let him make westing.He pledged himself so easily because he did not believe in the Powers of Darkness.He really believed only in God, though he did not know it.And in his inverted theology God was really the Prince of Darkness.Captain Cullen was a devil-worshipper, but he called the devil by another name, that was all.
At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals on.
The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks.Not alone were they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down and limbering their stiff bodies.George Dorety stood aft, near Captain Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmth as he watched the scene.Swiftly and abruptly the incident occurred.
There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man overboard!" Somebody threw a life-buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voice came aft, ringing and peremptory--"Hard down your helm!"
The man at the wheel never moved a spoke.He knew better, for Captain Dan Cullen was standing alongside of him.He wanted to move a spoke, to move all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade drowning in the sea.He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan Cullen gave no sign.
"Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw Dan Cullen by the wheel.And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said nothing.Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor.He had caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it.Nobody spoke.Nobody moved.
The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken faces.And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing.A long, silent minute passed.
"Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded.
"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
