"Gantlines!" said somebody. "A pull on the lee-sheet. Overhaul your clew," and black folds of canvas blew out and banged noisily above them. Then while the men chanted something as they rose and fell, the flapping folds slowly straightened out, and Niven looking up saw the topsail stretch into a great shadowy oblong. Then the men upon its yard seemed to claw at the next one, and there was more banging and thrashing as it rose, while the tug's whistle hooted, and hoarse shouts fell from the darkness and mingled with those from the poop.
"Forward," roared somebody. "Get the jibs on to her."
Neither Niven nor Appleby knew whether this referred to them or what they were expected to do, but there was nobody to tell them, so they followed two men forward, and stood panting a moment on the forecastle. It was rising and falling sharply now, for a long swell was running up channel, and they could dimly see a man crawling out upon the jibboom. This time they did not attempt to follow him, and when somebody drove them down the ladder a figure in oilskins thrust a rope into their hands.
"Hang on while I sweat it up," it said.
Appleby did not understand the manoeuvre, but when the man caught the rope beneath a pin and they took up the slack he gave them at every backward swing, a long triangular strip of canvas ceased banging, and the lads felt they were doing something useful when presently a second one rose into the blackness. Then they stood gasping, and watched the lights of the tug slide by. They could see the white froth from her paddles and the rise and fall of the black hull, while the voice of her skipper came ringing across the water.
"Good voyage!" he said. "You'll fetch Tuskar without breaking tack."
The tug went by, and Niven set his lips when with a farewell hoot of her whistle she vanished into the blackness astern. She was going back to Liverpool, and would be there before the morrow, while when another day crept out of the rain he would be only so much farther from home. He was not exactly sorry he had come, but by no means so sure that the sea was the only calling for Englishmen as he had been. Then the bulwarks they leaned upon lurched beneath them, and he was sensible that Appleby was speaking.
"She's starting now. Look at her. This is good, after all," he said.
Niven looked, and saw that black tiers of canvas had clothed the masts, though their upper portions still projected above it. They were also slanting, and the deck commenced to slope beneath him, while the long iron hull took on life and motion. There was a roar beneath the bows which rose and fell with a leisurely regularity, a swing and dip of the sloppy deck, and the spray began to blow in little stinging clouds over the forecastle. The wind also grew sharper, and at last Niven laughed excitedly as he felt the Aldebaran sweep away faster and faster into the night.
"Oh, yes," he said. "Now one can forget the other things."