The four of us were at table, and it was very comfortable, in spite of the _Elsinore’s_ violent antics. The room was warm. The storm-racks on the table kept each dish in its place. The steward served and moved about with ease and apparent unconcern, although I noticed an occasional anxious gleam in his eyes when he poised some dish at a moment when the ship pitched and flung with unusual wildness. And now and again I thought of the poor devils on the yard. Well, they belonged there by right, just as we belonged here by right in this oasis of the cabin. I looked at Mr. Pike and wagered to myself that half-a-dozen like him could master that stubborn foresail. As for the Samurai, I was convinced that alone, not moving from his seat, by a tranquil exertion of will, he could accomplish the same thing. The lighted sea-lamps swung and leaped in their gimbals, ever battling with the dancing shadows in the murky gray. The wood-work creaked and groaned. The jiggermast, a huge cylinder of hollow steel that perforated the apartment through deck above and floor beneath, was hideously vocal with the storm. Far above, taut ropes beat against it so that it clanged like a boiler-shop. There was a perpetual thunder of seas falling on our deck and crash of water against our for’ard wall; while the ten thousand ropes and gears aloft bellowed and screamed as the storm smote them. And yet all this was from without. Here, at this well-appointed table, was no draught nor breath of wind, no drive of spray nor wash of sea. We were in the heart of peace in the midmost centre of the storm. Margaret was in high spirits, and her laughter vied with the clang of the jiggermast. Mr. Pike was gloomy, but I knew him well enough to attribute his gloom, not to the elements, but to the inefficients futilely freezing on the yard. As for me, I looked about at the four of us—blue-eyed, gray-eyed, all fair-skinned and royal blond—and somehow it seemed that I had long since lived this, and that with me and in me were all my ancestors, and that their lives and memories were mine, and that all this vexation of the sea and air and labouring ship was of old time and a thousand times before. CHAPTER XXXIV. “How are you for a climb?” Margaret asked me, shortly after we had left the table. She stood challengingly at my open door, in oilskins, sou’wester, and sea-boots. “I’ve never seen you with a foot above the deck since we sailed,” she went on. “Have you a good head?” I marked my book, rolled out of my bunk in which I had been wedged, and clapped my hands for Wada. “Will you?” she cried eagerly. “If you let me lead,” I answered airily, “and if you will promise to hold on tight. Whither away?” “Into the top of the jigger. It’s the easiest. As for holding on, please remember that I have often done it. It is with you the doubt rests.” “Very well,” I retorted; “do you lead then. I shall hold on tight.”