An order to deal with the canvas in any way, on board ship, immediately commands the whole attention of all whose duty it is to attend to such matters, and there was an end of all discourse while the Swash was shortening sail. Everybody understood, too, that it was to gain time, and prevent the brig from reaching Throg's Neck sooner than was desirable.
“Keep the brig off,” called out Spike, “and let her ware—we're too busy to tack just now.”
The man at the wheel knew very well what was wanted, and he put his helm up, instead of putting it down, as he might have done without this injunction. As this change brought the brig before the wind, and Spike was in no hurry to luff up on the other tack, the Swash soon ran over a mile of the distance she had already made, putting her back that much on her way to the Neck. It is out of our power to say what the people of the different craft in sight thought of all this, but an opportunity soon offered of putting them on a wrong scent. A large coasting schooner, carrying everything that would draw on a wind, came sweeping under the stern of the Swash, and hailed.
“Has anything happened, on board that brig?” demanded her master.
“Man overboard,” answered Spike—“you hav'nt seen his hat, have you?”
“No—no,” came back, just as the schooner, in her onward course, swept beyond the reach of the voice. Her people collected together, and one or two ran up the rigging a short distance, stretching their necks, on the look-out for the “poor fellow,” but they were soon called down to “'bout ship.” In less than five minutes, another vessel, a rakish coasting sloop, came within hail.
“Did n't that brig strike the Pot Rock, in passing the Gate?” demanded her captain.
“Ay, ay!—and a devil of a rap she got, too.”
This satisfied him; there being nothing remarkable in a vessel's acting strangely that had hit the Pot Rock in passing Hell Gate.
“I think we may get in our mainsail on the strength of this, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike. “There can be nothing oncommon in a craft's shortening sail, that has a man overboard, and which has hit the Pot Rock. I wonder I never thought of all this before.”