In Which the Cook Smells Smoke, and the “First Venture” In a Gale of Wind Off the Chunks, Comes Into Still Graver Peril, Which Billy Topsail Discovers

Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay got the First Venture under way at dawn of the next day. It was blowing a stiff breeze. A fine, fresh wind was romping fair to the northwest, where, far off, Ruddy Cove lay and Mrs. Skipper William waited.

“I ’low,” Skipper Bill mused, as the schooner slipped through the narrows, “that that there insurance wouldn’t o’ done much harm anyhow.”

There was an abrupt change of weather. It came without warning; and there was no hint of apology to the skipper of the First Venture. When the schooner was still to the s’uth’ard of the dangerous Chunks, but approaching them, she was beating laboriously into a violent and capricious head wind. Bill o’ Burnt Bay, giving heed to Sir Archibald’s injunction, kept her well off the group of barren islands. They were 98 mere rocks, scattered widely. Some of them showed their forbidding heads to passing craft; others were submerged, as though lying in wait. It would be well to sight them, he knew, that he might better lay his course; but he was bound that no lurking rock should “pick up” his ship.

“Somehow or other,” he thought, “I wisht I had took out that there insurance.”

At dusk it began to snow. What with this thick, blinding cloud driving past, shrouding the face of the sea, and what with the tumultuous waves breaking over her, and what with the roaring gale drowning her lee rail, the First Venture was having a rough time of it. Skipper Bill, with his hands on the wheel, had the very satisfactory impression, for which he is not to be blamed, that he was “a man.” But when, at last, the First Venture began to howl for mercy in no uncertain way, he did not hesitate to waive the wild joy of “driving” for the satisfaction of keeping his spars in the sockets.

“Better call the hands, Tom!” he shouted to the first hand. “We’ll reef her.”

Tom put his head into the forecastle. The fire in the little round stove was roaring lustily; 99 and the swinging lamp filled the narrow place with warm light.

“Out with you, lads!” Tom cried. “All hands on deck t’ reef the mains’l!”

Up they tumbled; and up tumbled Archie Armstrong, and up tumbled Jimmie Grimm, and up tumbled Billy Topsail.

“Blowin’ some,” thought Archie. “Great sailin’ breeze. What’s he reefin’ for?”

The great sail was obstinate. Ease the schooner as Skipper Bill would, it was still hard for his crew of two men, three lads and a cook to grasp and confine the canvas. Meantime, the schooner lurched along, tossing her head, digging her nose into the frothy waves. A cask on the after deck broke its lashings, pursued a mad and devastating career fore and aft, and at last went spinning into the sea. Skipper Bill devoutly hoped that nothing else would get loose above or below. He cast an apprehensive glance into the darkening cloud of snow ahead. There was no promise to be descried. And to leeward the first islands of the Chunks, which had been sighted an hour ago, had disappeared in the night.

“Lively with that mains’l, lads!” Skipper Bill 100 shouted, lifting his voice above the wind. “We’ll reef the fores’l!”

The crew had been intent upon the task in hand. Not a man had yet smelled smoke. And they continued to wrestle with the obstinate sail, each wishing, heartily enough, to get the dirty-weather job well done, and to return to the comfort of the forecastle. It was the cook who first paused to sniff––to sniff again––and to fancy he smelled smoke. But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and he forgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce the disordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and the mainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentous intervals, during which the fate of the First Venture was determined.

“All stowed, sir!” Archie Armstrong shouted to the skipper.

“Get at that fores’l, then!” was the order.

With the customary, “Ay, ay, sir!” shouted cheerily, in the manner of good men and willing lads, the crew ran forward.

Skipper Bill remembers that the cook tripped and went sprawling into the lee scupper; and that he scrambled out of the water with a laugh. 101

It was the last laugh aboard the First Venture; for the condition of the schooner was then instantly discovered.

“Fire!” screamed Billy Topsail.

The First Venture was all ablaze forward.