“‘Yes, sir, and what course?’
“‘What course? Didn’t I say to swing her off? Put her fair before it. Jibe over your fores’l and let her run—let her run, I tell you! Whichever way she goes, let her run.’
“And we let her run all that night and all next day. She was under her winter rig—in March it was—no topm’sts; but the four lower sails alone were enough for any Gloucester fisherman that second night. I mind ’twas nine o’clock that night, and Abner Tucker’s watch. A staid, sober man was Abner. He’d been to sea for twenty years, and been with George for ten years—stayed with him because he knew him for a prudent man, I s’pose. Well, Abner took the wheel, and getting the feel of it, cried out, ‘Lord in heaven, it’s like trying to steer two vessels—she’s running wild!’ and braced himself against the wheel, but warn’t braced firm enough, or he warn’t strong enough, for he let her broach, and a sea swept her quarter, burying him and the vessel both. Over the top of the house went that sea and down into the cabin by the ton. They were floated out in the cabin and came tumbling up on deck. Josh Whitaker, a bait knife in his hand, jumped to the main peak halyards.
“The Skipper noticed him. ‘What you goin’ to do?’
“‘Cut,’ says Josh.
“‘You cut, and I’ll cut you!’ The Skipper, too, had a bait-knife, and he lunged with it for Josh. Then he stood guard by the halyards. ‘Or if anybody else thinks to cut’—and we saw the rest of it in his face—dark as it was, we saw that.
“The Skipper was still on guard there when Dan and myself came on deck for our watch. That was eleven o’clock. Dan went for’ard to look out and I took the wheel from Abner, and glad enough he was to turn the wheel over when he gave me the course. I looked in the binnacle to make sure he had it right.
“‘Still on that course?’ I asked, when I’d seen ’twas so. ‘Where’s the Skipper?’
“‘Here,’ said the Skipper himself from between the house and the weather rail, where he was still watching that nobody bothered the halyards, I s’pose. ‘What’s it?’
“‘How about the course?’ I asked.