Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 20, 1896 - Travels and excursion, Volume III

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE
time at half-past eight, it was plain he had already
drunk deep again at breakfast. Herrick avoided his
eye ; and resigned the deck with indignation to a
man more than half-seas-over.
By the loud commands of the captain and the
singing out of fellows at the ropes, he could judge
from the house that sail was being crowded on the
ship; relinquished his half- eaten breakfast; and
came on deck again, to find the main and the jib
topsails set, and both watches and the cook turned
out to hand the staysail. The Farallone lay already
far over; the sky was obscured with misty scud;
and from the windward an ominous squall came
flying up, broadening and blackening as it rose.
Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death
hard by ; and if not death, sure ruin. For if the
Farallone lived through the coming squall, she must
surely be dismasted. With that their enterprise
was at an end, and they themselves bound prisoners
to the very evidence of their crime. The greatness
of the peril and his own alarm sufficed to silence
him. Pride, wrath, and shame raged without issue
in his mind ; and he shut his teeth and folded his
arms close.
The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellowing
orders and insults, his eyes glazed, his face deeply
congested ; a bottle set between his knees, a glass
in his hand half empty. His back was to the squall,
and he was at first intent upon the setting of the
sail. When that was done, and the great trapezium
of canvas had begun to draw and to trail the lee-rail
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