would rest for an instant level with the rail, seeming
to pause motionless for a fraction of a second before flowing over and
sinking the ship, I lay a long time wondering vaguely at an imagination
that could make such a description possible, and as a heaving swell would
start along the rail at the waist, and go thundering along in a roaring
surf the entire length of the midship section over the edge, fetching up
with a crash against the forward cabin bulkhead, I heartily wished the
writer were aboard to share our sufferings. There was no spoon and teacup
business about that ship, and it sometimes seemed as though seven or
eight seas were rolling over her rails from all directions at once.

We were still below the thirty-eighth parallel, and consequently the
morning broke early, for it was January and midsummer. I arose from the
transom and went on deck at dawn, and found that the fog had lifted.
Andrews met me as I came from below, and gave me a nod as I took in the
horizon line at a glance.

"I reckon old hook-nose didn't care to wait any longer," he
growled sourly.

I took up the glass from the wheel box, and scanned the line carefully.
There was not a thing in sight save the smooth swell, ruffled now by
the slight breeze, and turning a deep blue-gray in the light of the
early morning. The sun rose from a cloudless horizon and shone warmly
upon the wreck. The foam glistened and sparkled in the rosy sunlight,
and looking over the rail I could see deep down into the clear depths.
The copper on the ship's bilge looked a light gray, and even the tacks
were visible. She drifted slowly along with just steering way, and the
spar alongside, which the men had tried to get aboard again, made a
gurgling wake with its heel.

"What do you make of it, Chips?" I asked, as the carpenter waded out in
the waist and came up the poop ladder.

"Long cruise an' plenty o' water, that's about th' size av ut, don't ye
think, sir?" the carpenter answered. "Trunnell has been took off, fer
sure. I don't mind stickin' aboard th' bleedin' hooker if there was a
chanst to get th' salvage; but no fear o' that while Andrews is here.
He'll block any argument to divvy up. Seems as we might even get down
under her bilge durin' this spell av weather, an' see where th' leak is
located. 'Tis a butt started, most like. Them English stevedores
generally rams th' stuffin' out av a ship in spite av th' marks they
puts on 'em."

Captain Sackett came fro