ad. Wow, she rolled!

"'She'll be makin' Smerwick,' says Bell.

"She'd ha' tried for Ventry by noo if she meant that,' I said.

"'They'll roll the funnel oot o' her, this gait,' says Bell. 'Why canna
Bannister keep her head to sea?'

"It's the tail-shaft. Ony rollin''s better than pitchin' wi'
superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder knows that much,' I said.

"'It's ill wark retreevin' steamers this weather,' said Bell. His beard
and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, an' the spray was white on the
weather side of him. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather!

"One by one the sea raxed away our three boats, an' the davits were
crumpled like ram's horns.

"'Yon's bad,' said Bell, at the last. 'Ye canna pass a hawser wi'oot a
boat.' Bell was a vara judeecious man--for an Aberdonian.

"I'm not one that fashes himself for eventualities outside the
engine-room, so I e'en slipped down betwixt waves to see how the Kite
fared. Man, she's the best geared boat of her class that ever left
Clyde! Kinloch, my second, knew her as well as I did. I found him dryin'
his socks on the main-steam, an' combin' his whiskers wi' the comb Janet
gied me last year, for the warld an' a' as though we were in port. I
tried the feed, speered into the stoke-hole, thumbed all bearin's, spat
on the thrust for luck, gied 'em my blessin', an' took Kinloch's socks
before I went up to the bridge again.

"Then Bell handed me the wheel, an' went below to warm himself. When he
came up my gloves were frozen to the spokes an' the ice clicked over my
eyelids. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather, as I was sayin'.

"The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin' cross-seas that
made the auld Kite chatter from stem to stern. I slowed to thirty-four,
I mind--no, thirty-seven. There was a long swell the morn, an' the
Grotkau was headin' into it west awa'.

"'She'll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft,' says Bell.

"'Last night shook her,' I said. 'She'll jar it off yet, mark my word.'

"We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile westsou'west o' Slyne
Head, by dead reckonin'. Next day we made a hunder an' thirty--ye'll
note we were not racin-boats--an' the day after a hunder an' sixty-one,
an' that made us, we'll say, Eighteen an' a bittock west, an' maybe
Fifty-one an' a bittock north, crossin' all the North Atlantic liner
lanes on the long slant, always in sight o' the Grotkau, creepin' up by
night and fallin' awa' by day. Aft