Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/133

 The Mohammedan's curse had been thorough and, so it began to seem as the voyage went on, of some effect, but he had forgotten one thing. Whatever went wrong, whatever accident, small or great, befell the ship on her race across the Atlantic, the wind never failed. The very sprites, afreets and genie known to Arab fancy seemed to sit in the hollow of the sail and lend strength with their blowing to the lusty trade winds. Lines parted, tackle jammed, and sails carried away, but still the wind held. The oldest but ablest seaman, he who had not believed in Gibraltar when he saw it, fell from a yard and was picked up with a broken knee. A falling block, dropping from a height to the deck below, crushed, in its passage, the shoulder of another sailor. But still the wind held and still the ship cut the South-Atlantic rollers like an arrow. Seven days, eight days, nine days—they were halfway across, and excitement had begun to run breathlessly high.

At the end of the ninth day, while the West Wind was wallowing in a cross sea, it was discovered that the water casks had broken loose from their lashings, that two of them were crushed, others injured, and that the greater portion of their precious water had leaked away.

"Then we have need to make port all the more quickly," Captain Reynolds said grimly, and stood