“Upon my soul, sir, I do not know,” said the Mate, who was standing at the wheel, and was looking very anxiously forward.
“Then why don’t you go forward and set it yourself? We shall be on the main shoal in two minutes, if she floats.”
“I know it, sir,” said the Mate; “but I dare not leave my post. We shall all have to answer for this; and if I am not where the Skipper has placed me, he will throw the blame upon me.”
“Then, by George, I don’t care that for your Skipper. Come along, boys, we’ll run up the jib ourselves.”
And away he rushed, pushing and shouldering his way along the crowded decks, among idlers, and horses, and carriages, followed by his own party, and a good many of the foreigners also; till he emerged on the forecastle, when, throwing down the jib and fore-staysail hallyards from the bitts and clattering them on the deck, while the Parson went forward to see all clear, he called out to the Russian servants, who, wet and frightened, were cowering under the carriages—
“Here, you slaveys, come out of that—clappez-vous sur ceci—clap on here, you rascals—rousez-vous dehors de ces bulwarks. What the devil is Greek for ‘skulking?’”
Whether the Russians understood one word of the Captain’s French, or whether they would have understood one word of it had they been Frenchmen, may be doubted; but his actions were significant enough; and the men, who only wanted to be told what to do, clapped on to the jib and fore-staysail hallyards as well and as eagerly as if they had known what was to be done with them; here and there, too, was seen a blue-jacket, for the seamen had no wish to skulk, if there had been any one to command them.
“Gib mig ropes enden!” shouted Professor Rosenschall, who had caught the enthusiasm, and was panting after them, though a long way astern.
“Birger will do that for you,” said the Parson, laughing, but without pausing for one moment from his work—“Birger! the Professor wants a rope’s-end.”
“Vær saa artig!” said Birger, tendering him the signal hallyards, the bight of which he had hitched round a spare capstan-bar on which he was standing. For Birger, like most Swedish soldiers, had passed a twelvemonth in a midshipman’s berth, where, whatever seamanship he had picked up, he had, at all events, learned plenty of mischief.