mical tune, and tramp, tramp, tramp
went a hundred and twenty feet round and round, and, with brawny chests
pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the
ship up to her anchor, drowning the fife at intervals with their sturdy
song, as pat to their feet as an echo:

Heave with a will ye jolly boys,
Heave around:
We're off from Chainee, jolly boys,
Homeward bound.

"Short stay apeak, sir," roars the boatswain from forward.

"Unship the bars. Way aloft. Loose sails. Let fall!"

The ship being now over her anchor, and the topsails set, the capstan
bars were shipped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger
grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave, and then
run up with a luff tackle and secured; the ship's head cast to port:

"Up with a jib! man the topsail halyards! all hands make sail!" Round
she came slow and majestically; the sails filled, and the good ship bore
away for England.

She made the Bogue forts in three or four tacks, and there she had to
come to again for another chop, China being a place as hard to get into
as Heaven, and to get out of as--Chancery. At three P. M. she was at
Macao, and hove to four miles from the land, to take in her passengers.

A gun was fired from the forecastle. No boats came off. Sharpe began to
fret: for the wind, though light, had now got to the N.W., and they were
wasting it. After a while the captain came on deck, and ordered all the
carronades to be scaled. The eight heavy reports bellowed the great
ship's impatience across the water, and out pulled two boats with the
passengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered the gunner to
load the carronades with shot, and secure and apron them. . . .

The _Agra_ had already shown great sailing qualities: the log was hove at
sundown and gave eleven knots; so that with a good breeze abaft few
fore-and-aft-rigged pirates could overhaul her. And this wind carried
her swiftly past one nest of them at all events; the Ladrone Isles. At
nine P. M. all the lights were ordered out. Mrs. Beresford had brought a
novel on board, and refused to comply; the master-at-arms insisted; she
threatened him with the vengeance of the Company, the premier, and the
nobility and gentry of the British realm. The master-at-arms, finding he
had no chance in argument, doused the glim--pitiable resource of a weak
disputant--then basely fled the rhetorical consequences.