sort of neutrality of independence for themselves. They were not
exactly sailors--Mr. Mellaire sneeringly called them the
"bricklayers"--but they had successfully refused subservience to the
gangster crowd.

To cross the deck from the chart-house to the break of the poop was
no slight feat, but I managed it and hung on to the railing while the
wind stung my flesh with the flappings of my pyjamas. At this
moment, and for the moment, the Elsinore righted to an even keel, and
dashed along and down the avalanching face of a wave. And as she
thus righted her deck was filled with water level from rail to rail.
Above this flood, or knee-deep in it, Mr. Pike and half-a-dozen
sailors were bunched on the fife-rail of the mizzen-mast. The
carpenter, too, was there, with a couple of assistants.

The next roll spilled half a thousand tons of water outboard sheer
over the starboard-rail, while all the starboard ports opened
automatically and gushed huge streams. Then came the opposite roll
to port, with a clanging shut of the iron doors; and a hundred tons
of sea sloshed outboard across the port-rail, while all the iron
doors on that side opened wide and gushed. And all this time, it
must not be forgotten, the Elsinore was dashing ahead through the
sea.

The only sail she carried was three upper-topsails. Not the tiniest
triangle of headsail was on her. I had never seen her with so little
wind-surface, and the three narrow strips of canvas, bellied to the
seemingness of sheet-iron with the pressure of the wind, drove her
before the gale at astonishing speed.