In the meantime, at
the cabin table, where gray twilight alternated with lamplight while the
lamps were being filled, George Dorety sat between the two men, one a
tiger and the other a hyena, and wondered why God had made them. The
second mate, Matthew Turner, was a true sailor and a man, but George
Dorety did not have the solace of his company, for he ate by himself,
solitary, when they had finished.
On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life
and headlong movement. On deck he found the _Mary Rogers_ running off
before a howling southeaster. Nothing was set but the lower topsails and
the foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen
knots, as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck. And
it was all westing. She was going around the Horn at last ... if the
wind held. Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was in
sight. But Captain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety in
passing. Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased
with that wind. He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in
his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would
promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west.
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