![]() ![]() From forward and aft all hands came running. “We must shorten sail,” he made up his mind.Ĭupping his hands to his mouth, he bellowed orders: “Furl the topgallant sail! Furl the coursers and the maintopsail! Shorten the fore-topsail!” “When the wind does strike, it will strike with fury.” His steps quickened. “We lie in the latitude of white squalls,” he said, a look of vexation on his face. He plucked nervously at his rusty black beard as if that would help him think. And now this sudden calm, this heavy warning of a storm. The Moor ponies to be delivered to the Viceroy of Peru could not be kept alive much longer. And if he did not get there, and get there soon, he was headed for trouble. He could feel his flesh creep with the sails. It was spilling out of the sails, causing them to quiver and shake. “Cursed be that stallion!” he muttered under his breath as he stamped forward and back, forward and back. The captain of the Santo Cristo strode the poop deck. It was not the cry of an animal in hunger. A WILD, ringing neigh shrilled up from the hold of the Spanish galleon. ![]()
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