The storm brewed¹ long in gray banks of cloud that hung in the west and north. It drew around the Rose of Devon from north to east with a slow, immutable² force, as yet perceived rather than felt, till she sailed in the midst of a circle of haze³. At night the moon was ringed. The sun rose in a bank of flaming red and the small sea-birds that by their presence, mariners⁴ say, tell of coming gales⁵, played over the wake.  
Captain Candle from the poop sniffed⁷ at the damp air: and studying the winds as they veered⁸ and rose in brisk flourishes and fell to the merest whisper of a breeze, he puckered¹⁰ his lips, which was his way when thoughts crowded upon him. Martin on the beakhead pursued his noisome¹¹ task of cleaning it under the watchful¹² eye of the swabber (who took unkind joy in exacting¹³ from him the utmost pains), and cast furtive¹⁴ glances at the gray swell¹⁵ that came shouldering up from the east.
 
"Holla, boatswain," the captain cried.
 
"Yea, yea!"
 
"Our foresail is old and hath lost its goodness. Look to thy stores and see if there be not another. Have it ready, then, to bend in haste if there be need."
 
"Yea, yea!"
 
"And lay out thy cordage, boatswain, that if sheet or halyard or tackling shall part, we may be ready to bend another in its place."
 
Descending¹⁷ thereupon into the forehold with his boatswain's mate to fetch and carry, Boatswain Marsham fell to work overhauling¹⁸ the bolts of sail-cloth and the hanks of cordage and the coils of rope, till he had found a new foresail and laid it under the hatch, and had placed great ropes and such cordage as headlines and marlines and sennets so that a man could lay hands on them in a time of haste and confusion. For the Rose of Devon was heavily pitching and the seas crashed on her three-inch planks¹⁹ with a noise like thunderclaps; and when she lifted on the swell, the water rumbled²¹ against her bilge and gurgled away past her run.
 
Very faintly he heard a sailor's voice, "The pump is choked." There was shouting above for a time, then the cry arose, which brought reassurance²² to all, "Now she sucks," and again there was quiet.
 
Climbing through the hatch and passing aft along the main deck, he heard for himself the suck-suck from the pump well, then the rattle²³ of tiller and creak of pintle as the helmsmen eased her off and brought her on to meet a rising sea.
 
"Holla, master!"
 
"Holla, is all laid ready below?"
 
"Yea! Ropes and cordage and sail are laid ready upon the main deck and secured against the storm."
 
"And seemeth she staunch to one in the hold?"
 
"Yea, master."
 
"Then, boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast, for we shall doubtless have need of both ere the day is done. Boy, fetch my cellar of bottles, for I would drink a health to all, fore¹⁶ and aft, and I would have the men served out each a little sack."
 
By midday the veering²⁴ winds had settled in the east and the overcast²⁵ sky had still further darkened. The ship, labouring heavily, held her course; but as the wind blew up a fresh gale⁶, the after sails took the wind from the sails forward, which began to beat and thresh. Swarming²⁶ aloft, the younkers handed the fore-topsail-steering-sail, the fore and main topsails, and the main-topsail-staysail. But as they manned the foreyard, the ship yawed in such a manner that the full force of the wind struck the old foresail and split it under their fingers.
 
Philip Marsham on the weather yardarm, with the grey seas breaking in foam²⁷ beneath him at one minute and with the forecastle itself seeming to rise up at him the next minute, so heavily did the old ship roll, was reaching for the sail at the moment it tore to ribands; and a billow of grey canvas striking him in the face knocked him off the yard; but as he fell, he locked his legs round the spar and got finger hold on the earing, and crawled back to the mast as the sailors stood by the ropes to strike the yard and get in the threshing tatters of the sail.
 
The mate, going aft, was caught in the waist when the ship gave a mighty²⁸ lurch²⁹, and went tumbling to lee-ward where the scupper-holes were spouting³⁰ like so many fountains all a-row. The fall might well have ended his days, had he not bumped into the capstan where he clung fast with both arms, and twice lucky he was to stay his fall thus, for a sea came roaring over the waist and drowned the fountains in the scuppers and in a trice the decks were a-wash from forecastle to poop. But the old ship shook her head and righted and Captain Francis Candle, leaning against the wind, his cloak flapping in the gale and his hat hauled hard down over his eyes, descended³¹ from the poop and braced³² himself in its lee.
 
"The wind blows frisking," the mate cried, scrambling³⁴ up the ladder and joining the master.
 
"Yea, it is like to over-blow. She took a shrewd plunge³⁶ but now. We shall further our voyage by striking every sail. Go thou, mate, and have them secure the spritsail-yard, then take thy station on the forecastle."
 
For an hour or two the old Rose of Devon went plunging³⁷ through the seas; and there was much loosing and lowering of sails. For a while, then, the wind scanted³⁸ so that there was hope the storm had passed, and during the lull³⁹ they bent⁴⁰ and set the new foresail and must needs brace³³ and veer⁹ and haul aft. But ere long the gale blew up amain, and in the late afternoon Captain Candle, sniffing⁴¹ the breeze, called upon all to stand by and once more to hand both foresail and mainsail.
 
"Cast off the topsail sheets, clew garnets, leechlines and buntlines!" The order came thinly through the roar of the wind.
 
"Yea, yea!" a shrill⁴³ voice piped.
 
"Stand by the sheet and brace—come lower the yard and furl the sail—see that your main halyards be clear and all the rest of your gear clear and cast off."
 
"It is all clear."
 
"Lower the main yard—haul down upon your down-haul." As the yard swayed down and the men belayed the halyards, one minute staggering to keep their feet, the next minute slipping and sliding across the decks, the captain's sharp voice, holding them at their work, cut through the gale, "Haul up the clew garnets, lifts, leechlines and buntlines! Come, furl the sail fast and secure the yard lest it traverse and gall⁴⁴!"
 
"'Twas a fierce gust," an old sailor cried to Phil, who had reached for the rigging and saved himself from going down to the lee scuppers. "We best look the guns be all fast. I mind, in the Grace and Mary, my second Guinea voyage, a gun burst its breechings—"
 
"Belay the fore down-haul!" the mate thundered, and leaving his tale untold⁴⁵, the old man went crawling forward.
 
The men heard faintly the orders to the helmsman, "Hard a-weather!—Right your helm!—Now port, port hard! More hands! He cannot put up the helm!"
 
Then out of the turmoil⁴⁶ and confusion a great voice cried, "A sail! A sail!"
 
"Where?"
 
"Fair by us."
 
"How stands she?"
 
"To the north'ard."
 
She lay close hauled by the wind and as the Rose of Devon, scudding⁴⁷ before the sea, bore down the wind and upon her, she hove out signs to speak; but though Captain Candle passed under her lee as near as he dared venture and learned by lusty shouting that she was an English ship from the East Indies, which begged the Rose of Devon for God's sake to spare them some provisions, since they were eighty persons on board who were ready to perish for food and water, the seas ran so high that neither the one vessel⁴⁸ nor the other dared hoist⁴⁹ out a boat; and parting, the men of the Rose of Devon lost sight of her in the

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