“Not as much coal as we had hoped,” he replied to my look rather than to any spoken word. “We have enough to last until this afternoon, and no doubt we will be in port ere that, unless—” and his bright little eyes swept the western heavens where the great relentless cloud was throwing its sable mantle across the sky.
“Yes, unless—” I replied. It was obvious to us both that we must make that harbor before the storm should shut us in, for once the snow and mist and sleet was upon us, our only hope of reaching port would be gone, and we would have to run for the open sea and ride it out. Not a very hopeful enterprise, this, even with full coal bunkers, but still less alluring with but six or eight hours steaming ability left, and these barren rocks leering at us for ninety miles along the coast.
For an hour we ran west, and then one of the crew picked up a familiar landmark. His statement was verified by others. In our backward run we had again slipped by the port without seeing it! The landmark was on the Trebizond side of Batuum!
Once more we put her head about, and once more cruised back along the coast. We talked it over and all agreed that we must find our refuge within the scanty hour that the storm would be upon us. The crew, too, began to realize our plight. Indeed, it did look grave enough. All that were not on duty in the engine room were peering toward the shore, their trained eyes trying to develop some tangible sign or landmark out of the snowy hillside that rose from the sea and swept backward till its peaks stood dimly outlined against the leaden winter’s sky.
For an hour we cruised along, every man on the boat chattering his anxiety and apprehension. They are not very strong on danger, these Black Sea sweepings (at least, that was my impression); only Morris grinned imperturbably, though in truth his grin became less and less heartfelt and finally slipped into the grimace type of humor. Yet he would not show his fear.
And ever did the great storm cloud grow in size and blackness in the west.
Faint streaks of green, yellow and purple shot its somber masses, until it grew like an image of Dante’s Inferno in our minds. Though I looked the other way, a dreadful fascination ever brought my eyes back to the rising menace, that steadily, surely, even as the mantle of death swept on toward us.