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sheered by, that they saw several sharks plunging about--ready to devour any of us who might have tried to swim ashore had the vessel come to grief. It was an escape to be thankful for to Him who watches over those who travel on the treacherous seas, and protects them from its perils "in the night, when no man seeth!" A dead stillness prevailed for a moment on board after the bustle of wearing the ship round had ceased, so that you might have heard a pin drop, as the saying is, although in the distance away astern the melancholy cadence of the waves breaking on Saint Paul's Islets was borne down to us on the wind. As I stood in the waist, whither so far aft I had followed Jorrocks, I could have caught any words spoken on the poop above me, but I noted that Mr Macdougall didn't utter a syllable in continuance of the reprimand he had begun against the boatswain for his "officiousness," as he apparently considered his order to put the ship off her course. He was terror-stricken on realising the motive for the boatswain's interference; however, before he had time to open his mouth again, the skipper, who had been roused up by the sudden commotion on the deck over his head, rushed past me up the poop ladder like lightning. Captain Billings' first look, sailor-like, was aloft; and noticing the vessel was before the wind, while the spanker, which had been eased off, prevented him from seeing the shoal we had so narrowly avoided, he turned on the mate for explanation. "Hallo, Macdougall!" he exclaimed, "what's the reason of this, eh?" But the mate did not answer at once. He still seemed spellbound. "We've just wore her, sir," said Jorrocks, stepping forwards, and accompanying Captain Billings as he made his way to the binnacle. "So I see," drily replied the skipper, after a hasty glance at the standard compass. "But what has been the reason for thus altering the course of the ship? I gave orders for her to be steered south-west by west; and here we are now heading direct up to the northward again! What's the reason for this, I want to know? Speak, now, can't you?" Macdougall, on this second inquiry being directed to him by the skipper--who for the moment seemed to ignore the boatswain's presence beside him--mumbled out something about the rocks, but he spoke in so thick and indistinct a voice that Captain Billings believed he was intoxicated. "Rocks, your grandmother!" he cried angrily. "The only roc
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