en rushing to their stations, left Joe
Fergusson and I rolling on the deck.

"Let go!" next cried the captain; adding a moment later, "Bosun, go
forward and slack off the head sheets!"

And then the rain came down in a perfect deluge, as if it were being
emptied out of a tub, and as it only can pour down in the tropics; and
that is how we "crossed the Line!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"ONE PIECEE COCK-FIGHTEE."

The ship had nearly all her canvas spread, so as to take advantage of
the first puff of air which came to waft us beyond the Doldrums towards
the region of the south-east trades, then beginning to blow just below
the calm belt; consequently, it took all hands some time to clew up and
furl all the light upper sails, and squall after squall burst over us
ere we could reduce the ship to her proper fighting trim of reefed
topsails and courses, our outer jib getting torn to shreds before it
could be handed.

"Begorra, it's a buster an' no mishtake!" exclaimed Tim Rooney coming
off the forecastle as soon as he had seen the other head sails attended
to, and setting me free from the lashings with which his whilom tritons
had bound my hands and legs. "Sp'ilin' all av our fun, too, Misther
Gray-ham, jist whin I wor goin' to shave ye!"

I did not regret this, though, I'm sure. Still, I did not stop to
answer him, being in too great a hurry to join Tom Jerrold and the
others aft in taking in the mizzen-royal and topgallant--my fellow
apprentices having had time already to get aloft while I was rolling on
the deck forward like a trussed fowl!

"Take it aisy, me darlint," shouted Tim after me as I rushed up the poop
ladder and swung myself into the shrouds; but, I was half-way up the
ratlines before he could get out the end of his exordium, "Aisy does
it!"

I was too late to help hand the royal, my especial sail since I had got
familiar with my footing aloft; but the mizzen-topgallant sheets,
bowlines and halliards having been hardly a second let go, and the men
on the poop having only just begun to haul on the clewlines and
buntlines, I was quite in time to get out on this yard. My aid, indeed,
came in usefully in assisting to stow the sail; although, in my haste
not to be eclipsed by Tom Jerrold, I nearly got knocked off my perch on
the foot-rope through the canvas ballooning out, in the same way as it
did when Joe Fergusson so narrowly escaped death only three weeks or so
before!

The fright, as I clutched hold