"Old Mother Nature's going to get up on her hind legs and howl for all that's in her, and it'll keep us jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats.

You'd better run up and loosen the topsails." "But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us ?" I asked, a note of protest in my voice.
"Why we've got to make the best of the first of it and run down to our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us.

After that I don't give a rap what happens.

The sticks 'll stand it, and you and I will have to, though we've plenty cut out for us." Still the calm continued.

We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious meal for me with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge of the earth, and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds moving slowly down upon us.