thout waking him. Now, therefore, was
my time for action. I accordingly dashed forward to the mast, and,
shipping the crank handle of the winch, hove away upon the halliard for
dear life. The yard and sail crept slowly--oh, how _very_ slowly--up
the mast, the canvas rustling in the wind noisily enough to wake the
dead, still more to reach the ears and give the alarm to those in the
dinghy. But, having once begun, there was nothing now for it but to go
on with the work, and get the yard mastheaded and good way upon the
felucca before those in the dinghy could pull back and get alongside.

At length, after what seemed to be an interminable time,--although the
rapid _click, click_ of the pawls told me that in reality I was
accomplishing my task very smartly,--I managed to get the yard some two-
thirds of the way up the mast, when I took a turn with the halliards and
once more rushed aft to get a look at the boat. As I had expected, the
slatting of the canvas had reached and given them the alarm, and the
boat was now round and heading back after the felucca, Miguel and
Dominguez straining frantically at the oars, while Luis had taken the
place of the latter at the tiller. The little craft was being pushed
furiously along--as I could tell by the manner in which her nose dipped
and the white foam boiled round it at every stroke of the oars; but the
felucca was gathering way, and with the wind square abeam and her
imperfectly hoisted sail ramping full, seemed to be quite holding her
own. I seized the tiller and kept her away another point, carefully
watching both her progress and that of the boat, and ten minutes later I
experienced the satisfying, conviction that she was steadily leaving her
pursuers. Once fully assured of this, I lashed the tiller, and once
more running forward, completed the setting of the sail, when I let the
little hooker come up to "full and by."

The next matter demanding my attention was that of conveying a supply of
food and water to the luckless occupants of the dinghy without
permitting them to come alongside. There were several small breakers of
fresh water on deck, constituting the supply of the felucca, and one of
these would be ample for the occupants of the dinghy until they could
get ashore or were picked up--indeed, the boat had not capacity for more
than one. They were all carefully bunged with cork and canvas, so I
could safely launch one of them overboard for the dinghy to pick u