ke a huge grampus and
pitching almost bows under water sometimes, though the old barquey was
buoyant enough, notwithstanding the lot of deadweight she carried in her
bowels, rising up after each plunge as frisky as a cork, when she would
shake herself with a movement that made her tremble all over, as if to
get rid of the loose spray and spindrift that hung on to her shining
black head, and which the wind swept before it like flecks of snow into
the rigging, spattering and spattering against the almost red-hot
funnels up which the steam blast was rushing mingled with the flare of
the funnels below.

After continuing his restless walk for a minute or two, the skipper
stopped by the binnacle, looking at the compass card, which moved about
as restlessly as the old barquey and himself, oscillating in every
direction.

"We ought to have come up with her by now, Haldane," he said, addressing
me, as I stood with Spokeshave on the other side of the wheel-house.
"Don't you think so from the course she was going when you sighted her?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, "if she hasn't gone down!"

"I hope not, my boy," said he; "but I'm very much afraid she has, or
else we've passed ahead of her."

"That's not likely, sir," I replied. "She looked as if crossing our
track when I last saw her; and, though we were going slower then, we
must be gaining on her now, I should think."

"We ought to be," said he. "We must be going seventeen knots at the
least with wind and steam."

"Aye, aye, sir, all that," corroborated old Masters, the boatswain, who
had come up on the bridge unnoticed. "Beg pardon, sir, but we can't
carry on much longer with all that sail forrad. The fore-topmast is a-
complainin' like anythink, I can tell ye, sir. Chirvell, the carpenter,
and me's examinin' it and we thinks it's got sprung at the cap, sir."

"If that's the case, my man," said Captain Applegarth to this, "we'd
better take in sail at once. It's a pity, too, with such a fine wind.
I was just going to spare the engines and ease down for a bit, trusting
to our sails alone, but if there's any risk of the spars going, as you
say, wrong, we must reduce our canvas instead."

"There's no help for it, sir," returned the boatswain quickly. "Either
one or t'other must go! Shall I pass the word, sir, to take in sail?"

"Aye, take in the rags!"

"Fo'c's'le, ahoy there!" yelled Masters instantly, taking advantage of
the long-desired permission. "All hands