, he had left his brick in the
galley--the fatal spot where it ought not to have been, in view of what
was to happen.

For three stormy days the ship had been charging along before a wind
that had increased to a gale, and a following sea that threatened to
climb aboard. The jib-topsail, the skysails and royals, the lighter
middle staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails had been
blown away, and the ship was practically under topsails, a bad
equipment of canvas with which to claw off a lee shore. The lee shore
developed at daylight of the fourth stormy morning, a dim blue
heightening of the horizon to the east, dead ahead; and Captain
Williams, who had been unable to get a sight with his sextant for six
days, could only determine that his dead reckoning, based upon the wild
steering of his crew, had brought him too far to the north, and that
the land he saw was the coast above Mizen Head.

After breakfast, when factory hours began, he called all hands to the
braces; and they came, bracing the yards for the starboard tack, to
keep away from that menacing lee shore; but, during the work, Murphy,
by way of encouragement, called the crew's attention to the dim blot of
blue to leeward.

"The Imerald Isle, boys," he declared. "Wark, ye watchmakers, wark, and
git home."

They worked nobly, but wondered why the ship was heading away from the
Emerald Isle, and expressed their wonder loudly and profanely. In vain
did Murphy explain that Queenstown was around the corner to the south,
and it was to Queenstown that they were bound. Their dissatisfaction
grew, and at dinner-time lifted them above the weakening influence of
the "sign language."

They had never taken account of the days when meat was due, ascribing
the fixed hiatuses to the unkindness of the Chinese cook; and when they
mustered at the galley door at noon and the cook handed them a huge pan
of bean soup they raged at him, incoherently, but vehemently.

"Whaur's th' mate--the mate? Giv's the mate, ye haythen! giv's the
mate, domyersool!"

The cook shrank back before their gleaming eyes and threatening fists,
and they crowded into the galley, where, as fate determined, the mild
little steward was gathering up the cabin dinner. He seized his brick.

"Now, here, you men," he said, bravely, "you get right out of this
galley. Do you hear?" And he waved his brick threateningly.

"Whaur's the mate? Giv's the mate, ye man-killers."

"The mate is aft. You kn