They came upon bad weather gradually, drawing into a belt of half-gales, with squalls that roared up from the horizon and made them for the time, into whole gales.  The Villingen, designed and built primarily for cargo capacity, was a wet ship, and upon any point of sailing had a way of scooping in water by the many tons.  In nearly every watch came the roar, “Stand by yer to’gallant halliards!” Then the wait for ten seconds or ten minutes while the wind grew and the big four-masted barque lay over and bumped her bluff bows through racing seas, till the next order, shriller and more urgent, “Lower avay!” and the stiff canvas fought and slatted as the yards came down.  Sea-boots and oilskins were the wear for every watch; wet decks and the crash of water coming inboard over the rail, dull cold and the rasp of heavy, sodden canvas on numb fingers, became again familiar to the men, and at last there arrived the evening, gravid with tempest, on which all hands reefed top-sails.

The mate had the middle watch, from midnight till four o’clock in the morning, and for the first two hours it was Conroy’s turn on the lookout.  The rest, in oilskins and sea-boots, were standing by under the break of the poop; save for the sleeping men in the shut forecastle, he had the fore part of the ship to himself.  He leaned against the after rail of the fore-castle head, where a ventilator somewhat screened him from the bitter wind that blew out of the dark, and gazed ahead at the murk.  Now and again the big barque slid forward with a curtseying motion, and dipped up a sea that flowed aft over the anchors and cascaded down the ladders to the main-deck; spray that spouted aloft’ and drove across on the wind, sparkled red and green in the glare of the sidelights like brief fireworks.

The splash and drum of waters, the heavy drone of the wind in the sails, the clatter of gear aloft, were in his ears; he did not hear one bell strike from the poop, which he should have answered with a stroke on the big bell behind him and a shouted report on the lights.

“Hoy!  You schleepin’ up dere—­hey?”

It was the mate, who had come forward in person to see why he had not answered.  He was by the fore fife-rail, a mere black shape in the dark.

“Sleepin’—­no, sir!”

“Don’t you hear yon bell shtrike?” cried the mate, slithering on the wet deck toward the foot of the ladder.

“No, sir,” said Conroy, and stooped to strike the bell.

The mate came up the ladder, hauling himself by the hand-rails, for he was swollen beyond the ordinary with extra clothes under his long oilskin coat.  A plume of spray whipped him in the face as he got to the top, and he swore shortly, wiping his eyes with his hands.  At the same moment, Conroy, still stooping to the bell-lanyard, felt the Villingen lower her nose and slide down in one of her disconcerting curtseys; he caught at the rail to steady himself.  The dark water, marbled with white foam, rode in over the deck, slid across the anchors and about the capstan, and came aft toward the ladder and the mate.  The ship rolled at the same moment.