The men who gazed on him from the waist saw in his resolution only stubborn determination to punish them.

“He’s sartinly the obstinatest man that ever lowered his head at ye,” said Zeburee Nute, breaking in on the apprehensive mumble of his fellows.  “He won’t stop at northin’ when he’s mad.  Look what he’s done in Smyrna.  But I call this rubbin’ it in a darn sight more’n he’s got any right to do.”

His lament ended in a seasick hiccough.

“I don’t understand sailormen very well,” observed Jackson Denslow; “and it may be that a lot of things they do are all right, viewed from sailorman standpoint.  But if Cap Sproul wa’n’t plumb crazy and off’m his nut them times we offered him honors in our town, and if he ain’t jest as crazy now, I don’t know lunatics when I see ’em.”

“Headin’ straight out to sea when dry ground’s off that way,” said Murray, finning feeble hand to starboard, “ain’t what Dan’l Webster would do, with his intellect, if he was here.”

Hiram Look sat among them without speaking, his eyes on his friend outlined against the gloom at the wheel.  One after the other the miserable members of the Ancients and Honorables appealed to him for aid and counsel.

“Boys,” he said at last, “I’ve been figgerin’ that he’s just madder’n blazes at what you done to the sails, and that as soon’s he works his mad off he’ll turn tail.  Judgin’ from what he said to me, it ain’t safe to tackle him right away.  It will only keep him mad.  Hold tight for a little while and let’s see what he’ll do when he cools.  And if he don’t cool then, I’ve got quite a habit of gettin’ mad myself.”

And, hanging their hopes on this argument and promise, they crouched there in their misery, their eyes on the dim figure at the wheel, their ears open to the screech of the gale, their souls as sick within them as were their stomachs.

In that sea and that wind the progress of the Dobson was, as the Cap’n mentally put it, a “sashay.”  There was way enough on her to hold her into the wind, but the waves and the tides lugged her slowly sideways and backward.  And yet, with their present sea-room Cap’n Sproul hoped that he might claw off enough to save her.

Upon his absorption in these hopes blundered Hiram through the night, crawling aft on his hands and knees after final and despairing appeal from his men.

“I say, Cap’n,” he gasped, “you and I have been too good friends to have this go any further.  I’ve took my medicine.  So have the boys.  Now let’s shake hands and go ashore.”

No reply from the desperate mariner at the wheel battling for life.

“You heard me!” cried Hiram, fear and anger rasping in his tones.  “I say, I want to go ashore, and, damme, I’m goin’!”

“Take your shoes in your hand and wade,” gritted the Cap’n.  “I ain’t stoppin’ you.”  He still scorned to explain to the meddlesome landsman.

“I can carry a grudge myself,” blustered Hiram.  “But I finally stop to think of others that’s dependent on me.  We’ve got wives ashore, you and me have, and these men has got families dependent on ’em.  I tell ye to turn round and go ashore!”