Great seas were boarding the _Spray_, but in my fevered brain I
thought they were boats falling on deck, that careless draymen were
throwing from wagons on the pier to which I imagined the _Spray_ was
now moored, and without fenders to breast her off. "You'll smash your
boats!" I called out again and again, as the seas crashed on the cabin
over my head. "You'll smash your boats, but you can't hurt the
_Spray_. She is strong!" I cried.
I found, when my pains and calentura had gone, that the deck, now as
white as a shark's tooth from seas washing over it, had been swept of
everything movable. To my astonishment, I saw now at broad day that
the _Spray_ was still heading as I had left her, and was going like a
racehorse. Columbus himself could not have held her more exactly on
her course. The sloop had made ninety miles in the night through a
rough sea. I felt grateful to the old pilot, but I marveled some that
he had not taken in the jib. The gale was moderating, and by noon the
sun was shining. A meridian altitude and the distance on the patent
log, which I always kept towing, told me that she had made a true
course throughout the twenty-four hours. I was getting much better
now, but was very weak, and did not turn out reefs that day or the
night following, although the wind fell light; but I just put my wet
clothes out in the sun when it was shining, and lying down there
myself, fell asleep. Then who should visit me again but my old friend
of the night before, this time, of course, in a dream.
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