long so beautifully; but, what is that speck out there,
captain, away to the right--is it a bird, or what?"

"Eh, my dear?" said the skipper, looking in the direction the girl had
pointed--"a bird? no, by Jove, it looks like a sail of a boat well down
on the horizon. Here, McCarthy, hand me your glass."

Captain Dinks seemed even more excited than he had been a moment before
when he spoke of the vessel's progress; for, taking the telescope that
the mate handed him, he scrutinised eagerly the object Kate had noticed.

"Good heavens, it is a boat!" he exclaimed presently, "and I think I can
see a man in the stern-sheets, though I'm not quite sure: at all events,
I'll run down and overhaul it, for it would never do to abandon a poor
fellow in distress; no English sailor would think of such a thing! This
is all your doing, Miss Kate, you and your pretty eyes, which have the
best sight of any on board. We'll have to put the ship about,
McCarthy," he added to the mate; "we can't fetch that boat on this
tack."

"Hands 'bout ship!" roared the mate, in response to the captain's
implied wish; and, immediately, there was much running to and fro on the
decks, and a yelling out of orders and hoarse "aye ayes" in reply--a
striking difference to the quiet that had reigned a moment or two
before, when the ship was slipping along through the water with the wind
on her quarter, never a sail having to be shifted or a rope pulled, and
only the man at the wheel for the time being having anything to do out
of the thirty odd hands on board.

"Helm's a lee!" cried the captain, and the head-sheets were let go;
"raise tacks and sheets!" and the fore-tacks and main sheets were cast
off; while the weather crossjack braces and the lee main braces were
belayed, ready to be let go at a moment's notice, and the opposite
braces hauled taut. "Mainsail haul!" then sang out the captain when
these preparations were completed; when the braces being let go, the
yards swung round like a top. The after yards were subsequently braced
up and belayed, the main sheet hauled aft, the spanker eased over to
leeward, and the watch stood by the head braces.

"Let go and haul!" was the next word of command; upon which the weather
fore-braces were let go and those to leeward hauled in by the men
forward under the personal supervision of Mr McCarthy, after which the
men boarded the fore-tack and hauled down the jib-sheet, clapping a
tackle on it as it blew fres