Jerry of the Islands / Джерри-островитянин. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Scarcely had the mate fetched a blanket from below and turned in on deck, than a brisk steady breeze sprang up from off the land, sending the Arangi through the smooth water at a nine-knot clip[92 - at a nine-knot clip – (разг.) со скоростью девять узлов в час (1 узел = 1852 м/час, единица скорости на море)]. For a time Jerry tried to stand the watch with Skipper, but he soon curled up and dozed off, partly on the deck and partly on Skipper’s bare feet.

When Skipper carried him to the blanket and rolled him in, he was quickly asleep again; and he was quickly awake, out of the blanket, and padding after along the deck as Skipper paced up and down. Here began another lesson, and in five minutes Jerry learned it was the will of Skipper that he should remain in the blanket, that everything was all right, and that Skipper would be up and down and near him all the time.

At four the mate took charge of the deck.

“Reeled off thirty miles,” Van Horn told him. “But now it is baffling again. Keep an eye for squalls under the land. Better throw the halyards down on deck[93 - throw the halyards down on deck – (мор.) сбросьте фалы на палубу] and make the watch stand by. Of course they’ll sleep, but make them sleep on the halyards and sheets.”

Jerry roused to Skipper’s entrance under the blanket, and, quite as if it were a long-established custom, curled in between his arm and side, and, after one happy sniff and one kiss of his cool little tongue, as Skipper pressed his cheek against him caressingly, dozed off to sleep.

Half an hour later, to all intents and purposes[94 - to all intents and purposes – (разг.) на деле; по существу], so far as Jerry could or could not comprehend, the world might well have seemed suddenly coming to an end.

What awoke him was the flying leap of Skipper that sent the blanket one way and Jerry the other. The deck of the Arangi had become a wall, down which Jerry slipped through the roaring dark. Every rope and shroud was thrumming and screeching in resistance to the fierce weight of the squall.

“Stand by main halyards![95 - Stand by main halyards! – (мор.