D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Wind and Wave Wait Not. 85 “What is that, Pedro? A thunderstorm on the Ad- rianos that you spoke of ?” “That,” replied the master, studying by listening for the reverberation, “that is made thunder—man’s great guns, sir!” | “Why, there is a truce! Spain and France think of court balls!” “It is cannon, and at sea. I, too, thought the eternal foes were pausing, but who can tell the duration of truces when treaties last so little long? But we shall hear no more out of that quarter. Because why? the wind is al- ready tossing the white scud over there, as we look, and they must secure the guns or have them dash through the side! We shall be in their midst before long, swept be- fore the blast like lamb’s wool over the furze. Look at the Swordfish, well-named—ill-omened thing! how she bends two ways at once in ‘her foolish elongation! A pipe- stem, absurd as the nautilus in these restless waters. They had better have kept her in the soft, inland-locked sea, than let her poke ‘her slender snout into the choleric Atlantic!’ The mariner must have been in a bad way to blame the deck on which he stood. There came up and there sped over in an incredibly brief time for so much power to be manifested, a gale which should be memorable, but a logbook is written in the lull and the calm. Pedro, like them all, soaked from head to foot, while his men clung to ropes and were twisted in them as the pliant staffs whipped, roared in D’Artagnan’s ear, though touching: “Still afoot, eh? I thought you might have stepped off and walked ashore! Well, that was a lasher, eh? but it’s a lady’s fan tap to what is coming! Take advantage of the pause to make your peace tighter than those between kings! It is all one now with our schemes and conniv- ings! To think that King Philip will sleep the sounder because the poor X1piias foundered under his guns at San Sebastian !” The long, narrow, rounded xebec wallowed in the trough, when she did not bend between two waves as if to break in two; half the time one-half of her was smoth- ered if the other end hooked itself upward. Nothing but im CORMNIELOOOK<S.(E@)