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"Yes," said a youth, "I f'und one of 'em an' he told me the Hawk's luck was Jonahed this trip." "Where's the packet lyin'?" "About twelve mile sou'east near the edge of the Bank." Nat went to the wheel himself. "Up jib an' fores'l," he sung out, "and sway 'em flat! Mains'l and tops'ls after that! Raymond, overhaul the balloon, stays'l, and trys'l!
"That wheel, there, is lashed over; they've paid out the mains'l enough to starboard, and set the jib properly to port. That's why the fores'l isn't up!" "What of it?" "Why, sir, she'll sail that way all day in a wind like this, and nobody have to touch her! They knew we'd be popping at their helmsman, and they fixed it so we carn't! Now it's our turn to start something!"
Oh, not much. Just like any other place." "But what do you do down there?" "Do? Why, we fish, in the pleasant weather." "And when it's not pleasant?" "Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves." "How?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard it all a hundred times. "One way 'n' another.
"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the wind took her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near thinkin' a heap o' you an' your folks." Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her up the harbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. "Pshaw, my dear," said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. Like's not it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout.
"Oh, you need not go!" said the captain; but Mrs Strong left the room. "Shall I go, father?" asked Mark. "No, my boy, no. Sit down. Well, Billy, what news?" "None at all, sir, only we shall soon be full up; they've bent on a new mains'l and fores'l; we've been a-painting of her streak to-day, and she do look lovely, and no mistake. But here's a letter I was to give you, sir."
One minute they were sound asleep in their bunks and the next adrift and half-dressed in a dory in the middle of the harbor with a gale of wind roaring in their ears and a choppy sea wetting 'em down. "In with her chain-anchor slack," I calls, "and then up with her jibs," which they did. "And now her fores'l up with her fores'l." Then we broke out her chain-anchor.
The very gulls themselves were asleep; only the fores'l, swaying to a short sheet, would roll part way to wind'ard and back to loo'ard, but quiet as could be even then, except for the little tapping noises of the reef-points when in and out the belly of the canvas would puff full up and let down again to what little wind was stirring. It was a perfect, calm night, but no calm day was to follow.
Half a dozen lay out on the yard above, tucking away the great sail and making all snug. "Take a reef in the fores'l!" the mate roared, "and look alive about it!" "Hurry up, ye swabs!" Miggs bellowed. "You'll be blown away, every mother's son of ye, if you don't stir yourselves!"
Everybody has turned in to repair damages, and, perhaps, afterwards to sleep. The Commodore is studying the charts on the dining-room table, and the captain, an American, has just put his head in at the door and said: "She's sailing twelve knots an hour under just the fores'l, sir, and she's running like a scairt dog."
Now the Ruby was one of the vessels of Webster and Company which had been sent away with the hope, if not the intention, that it should be wrecked! The mistake had been discovered only after the Ocean Queen had set sail. "Ready about," cried the pilot. The men leaped to their respective places. "Take another pull at that fores'l sheet," said the pilot. This was done.
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