Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/132

 quailing. The gate subsided toward night, but the ocean didn't appear to know it and kept right on being cantankerous, perhaps because it was aware, as those in the plunging ships were not, that the gale's reformation was but temporary.

At seven bells Nelson was on lookout duty, a life-vest strapped around his body and everything but his face hidden by rubber garments. His station was near the waist and, fortunately or unfortunately, according to one's view of subsequent events, on the starboard. Behind him, affording partial shelter from wind and flying spray, arose one of the high funnels, while, above him, a whale-boat, one of the few small boats carried in time of war, lurched against the gloom of the sky. Occasionally he caught the faint glow of a dimmed stern light somewhere ahead, but for the rest the darkness was unrelieved. The night was chill, but he was warmly dressed under his slicker and felt no discomfort from cold. What was uncomfortable was the spray that flew slanting along and across the deck from the big waves that battered the ship's port bow. When a more than usually big sea came aboard the spray rattled against him like hail and the water came swashing about his feet, ankle deep, on its way to the scuppers. That was at half-past eleven, and for some 109