He murmured a phrase strongly reminiscent of the _Americano_ who took hunting trips into the interior of Central America, and hurried to his cabin, where he stripped and rubbed his limbs to a glow before turning in.
During the night the storm developed into that elemental chaos which the landsman exaggerates into a hurricane and the sailor logs as a strong northwesterly gale. Passage along the open decks of the _Southern Cross_ became a hazardous undertaking, an experiment just practicable for a strong man clad in oilskins and seaboots, but positively dangerous for one unable to interpret the vagaries of a ship plunging through a heavy sea. A broken limb or ugly bruise was the certain penalty of an incautious movement, if, indeed, one was not swept overboard.
For a passenger--a non-combatant, so to speak--the only certain way to insure physical safety was to lie prone in a bunk, with a hand ever ready to seize the nearest rail when an unusually violent lurch tilted the vessel to an angle of forty-five degrees and simultaneously drove her nose into a veritable mountain of water.
Maseden contrived to sleep fitfully until a thin gray light, trickling through a tiny port when momentarily free of wave-wash, told him that another day had dawned. The din was incessant. Inanimate things may be inarticulate to human ears, but they speak a language of their own on such occasions--an inchoate tongue made up of banging and clattering, of stunning vibrations, of wind-shrieks, of the groaning of steel framework, riveted plates, and seasoned timber.
The _Southern Cross_ was tackling her work with stubborn energy, but she complained of its severity in every fibre. Ships, like men, prefer easy conditions, and growl in their own peculiar manner when compelled to wage a fierce and continuous fight for mere existence.
Of course a sailor never permits himself to think of his own craft in such wise. "Dirty weather" is simply an unpleasant episode in the routine of a voyage. He regards it much as the average city man views wind and rain--displeasing additions to life's minor worries, but not to be considered as affecting the daily task.
In a modern, well-found steamship such negative faith is fully justified, and the ship's company of the _Southern Cross_ went about their several duties as methodically as though the vessel were roped securely alongside a pier in the North River.