ght
Fighting, fighting, that no'the-east gale;
Every man, be sure, did his might,
But never a sign of a single sail
Was there in the morning when the sun shone red,
But a hundred and seventy fine men--dead--
Were settling somewhere into the sand
On Georges shoals, which is Drowned Men's Land.

"Seventy widows kneeling----"

A long hail came over the water and a torch was raised and lowered.
"Hi-i--" hallooed the voice.

"Hi-i-i--" hallooed back Clancy as he pulled down his wheel. You might
have thought he intended to run over them. But no, for at the very
last second he threw her up cleverly and let her settle beside the
boat, from which most of the men came tumbling immediately over the
side of the vessel. Of those who stayed, one shackled the boat's bow
onto the iron that hung from the boom at the fore-rigging, and having
done that, braced an oar between himself and the vessel's run to hold
the boat away and steady while another in the stern of the boat did
the same thing with his oar. In the boat's waist two men hung onto the
seine.

A section of the cork edge of the seine was then gathered inboard and
clamped down over the vessel's rail, with the mackerel crowded into
the middle part, and the bunt of the seine thus held safely between
boat and vessel. Into this space the sea swashed and slapped after a
manner that kept all in the boat completely drenched and made it
pretty hard for the men in bow and stern to fend off and retain their
balance at the same time.

And then began the bailing in. Guided by the skipper, who stood on the
break, our big dip-net, which could hold a barrel easily, was dropped
over the rail and in among the kicking fish. A twist and a turn and
"He-yew!" the skipper yelled. "Oy-hoo!" grunted the two gangs of us at
the halyards, and into the air and over the rail swung the dip-net,
swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons,
who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the
dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and
in it came again. "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned upside
down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish flipped their length
against the hard deck. Head and tail they flipped, each head and tail
ten times a second seemingly, until it sounded--they beat the deck so
frantically--as if a regiment of gentle little drummer boys were
tapping a low but wonderfully quick-soundi