There was a hubbub of talk as they sat there, and there was no doubt but they were of one mind to turn their backs on the bleak northern coast and seek a golden fortune in the south. But the council arrived suddenly at an end when down from the deck came the lingering call, "A sa-i-l! A sa-i-l!"
Up, then, the Old One leaped, and he raised his hand. "A sail is cried. What say you?"
"Let us not cast away what God hath offered us!"
"Yea, Yacob!"
"Up, you dogs in the steerage! A hall, a hall!"
One fell over on the table in drunken torpor. Another rushed out the door and tumbled over a sleeper at the threshold.
"Up, you dogs! How stands he?"
They poured out of the cabin to the deck.
"He stands on the lee bow!"
"Bear up the helm! A fresh man at the helm!" the Old One thundered. He squinted across the sea. "Come, Harry—here on the poop—and tell me if she be not a ketch. Now she lifts—now she falls. 'Twill be a chase, I take it."