done); but here was the wind working
light into the eastward, and the sails nearly aback, and any minute
might bring the Old Man on deck to inquire, with vehemence, "What the
---- somebody was doing with the ship?" There was nothing else for it;
the house would have to stand.

"_T--'tt_, lee-fore-brace, the watch there!" Buckets and scrapers were
thrown aside, the watch mustered at the braces, and the yards were
swung slowly forward, the sails lifting to a faint head air.

This was the last of the south-east trades, a clean-running breeze that
had carried us up from 20 deg. S., and brace and sheet blocks, rudely
awakened from their three weeks' rest, creaked a long-drawn protest to
the failing wind; ropes, dry with disuse, ran stiffly over the sheaves,
and the cries of the men at the braces added the human note to a chorus
of ship sounds that marked the end of steady sailing weather.

"_He--o--ro_, round 'm in, me sons;
_ho--io--io_--lay-back-an'-get-yer-muscle-up-fer ghostin' through th'
doldrums!" Roused by the song (broad hints and deep-sea pleasantries)
of the chanteyman, the Old Man came on deck, and paced slowly up and
down the poop, whistling softly for wind, and glancing expectantly
around the horizon. Whistle as he might, there was no wisp of stirring
cloud, no ruffling of the water, to meet his gaze, and already the sea
was glassing over, deserted by the wind. Soon what airs there were
died away, leaving us flat becalmed, all signs of movement vanished
from the face of the ocean, and we lay, mirrored sharply in the
windless, silent sea, under the broad glare of an equatorial sun.

For a space of time we were condemned to a seaman's purgatory; we had
entered the 'doldrums,' that strip of baffling weather that lies
between the trade winds. We would have some days of calm and heavy
rains, sudden squalls and shifting winds, and a fierce overhead sun;
and through it all there would be hard labour for our crew (weak and
short-handed as we were), incessant hauling of the heavy yards, and
trimming of sail. Night or day, every faint breath of wind a-stirring,
every shadow on the water, must find our sail in trim for but a flutter
of the canvas that would move us on; any course with north in it would
serve. "Drive her or drift her," by hard work only could we hope to
win into the steady trade winds again, into the gallant sailing weather
when you touch neither brace nor sheet from sunset to sunrise.

Overh