ceased.

"It'd a-ben good night," Daughtry concluded for him. "She's a-knocked
our stern clean off of us, sir."

Again wheeling, this time at no more than two hundred yards, the whale
charged back, not completing her semi-circle sufficiently, so that she
bore down upon the schooner's bow from starboard. Her back hit the stem
and seemed just barely to scrape the martingale, yet the _Mary Turner_
sat down till the sea washed level with her stern-rail. Nor was this
all. Martingale, bob-stays and all parted, as well as all starboard
stays to the bowsprit, so that the bowsprit swung out to port at right
angles and uplifted to the drag of the remaining topmast stays. The
topmast anticked high in the air for a space, then crashed down to deck,
permitting the bowsprit to dip into the sea, go clear with the butt of it
of the forecastle head, and drag alongside.

"Shut up that dog!" Nishikanta ordered Daughtry savagery. "If you don't
. . . "

Michael, in Steward's arms, was snarling and growling intimidatingly, not
merely at the cow whale but at all the hostile and menacing universe that
had thrown panic into the two-legged gods of his floating world.

"Just for that," Daughtry snarled back, "I'll let 'm sing. You made this
mess, and if you lift a hand to my dog you'll miss seeing the end of the
mess you started, you dirty pawnbroker, you."

"Perfectly right, perfectly right," the Ancient Mariner nodded
approbation. "Do you think, steward, you could get a width of canvas, or
a blanket, or something soft and broad with which to replace this rope?
It cuts me too sharply in the spot where my three ribs are missing."

Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man's arm.

"Hold him, sir," the steward said. "If that pawnbroker makes a move
against Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite him, anything. I'll be back
in a jiffy, sir, before he can hurt you and before the whale can hit us
again. And let Killeny Boy make all the noise he wants. One hair of
him's worth more than a world-full of skunks of money-lenders."

Daughtry dashed into the cabin, came back with a pillow and three sheets,
and, using the first as a pad and knotting the last together in swift
weaver's knots, he left the Ancient Mariner safe and soft and took
Michael back into his own arms.

"She's making water, sir," the mate called. "Six inches--no, seven
inches, sir."

There was a rush of sailors across the wreckage of the fore-topmast to
the forecastl