t doing around in the west? That's what I want to know,"
was Grief's contribution to the general plaint.

"It won't last, and it ain't been there long," said Hermann, the Holland
mate. "She is been chop around all night--five minutes here, ten minutes
there, one hour somewhere other quarter."

"Something makin ', something makin '," Captain Warfield croaked,
spreading his bushy beard with the fingers of both hands and shoving
the thatch of his chin into the breeze in a vain search for coolness.
"Weather's been crazy for a fortnight. Haven't had the proper trades in
three weeks. Everything's mixed up. Barometer was pumping at sunset last
night, and it's pumping now, though the weather sharps say it don't mean
anything. All the same, I've got a prejudice against seeing it pump.
Gets on my nerves, sort of, you know. She was pumping that way the time
we lost the _Lancaster_. I was only an apprentice, but I can remember
that well enough. Brand new, four-masted steel ship; first voyage; broke
the old man's heart. He'd been forty years in the company. Just faded
way and died the next year."

Despite the wind and the early hour, the heat was suffocating. The wind
whispered coolness, but did not deliver coolness. It might have blown
off the Sahara, save for the extreme humidity with which it was laden.
There was no fog nor mist, nor hint of fog or mist, yet the dimness of
distance produced the impression. There were no defined clouds, yet
so thickly were the heavens covered by a messy cloud-pall that the sun
failed to shine through.

"Ready about!" Captain Warfield ordered with slow sharpness.

The brown, breech-clouted Kanaka sailors moved languidly but quickly to
head-sheets and boom-tackles.

"Hard a-lee!"

The helmsman ran the spokes over with no hint of gentling, and the
_Malahini_ darted prettily into the wind and about.

"Jove! she's a witch!" was Mulhall's appreciation. "I didn't know you
South Sea traders sailed yachts."

"She was a Gloucester fisherman originally," Grief explained, "and
the Gloucester boats are all yachts when it comes to build, rig, and
sailing."

"But you're heading right in--why don't you make it?" came the
Englishman's criticism.

"Try it, Captain Warfield," Grief suggested. "Show him what a lagoon
entrance is on a strong ebb."

"Close-and-by!" the captain ordered.

"Close-and-by," the Kanaka repeated, easing half a spoke.

The _Malahini_ laid squarely into the narrow passage whic