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