“By Jingo, Mister Leigh, you’re right after all!” he exclaimed, his face turning pale as if with sudden fright.
“What, do you think we’re running on the rocks I spoke about?” I asked, anxiously.
“Aye, not a doubt of it,” he answered, in the same quick way, bending his head again to listen over the side. “Either them identical ones, or else we’re on the Rocas off the Brazilian coast.”
In another moment, however, if in doubt previously, his suspicions were apparently confirmed; for, springing up again, and rushing aft as if he were suddenly possessed, Jorrocks roared out at the pitch of his voice—the words ringing like a trumpet note through the ship—
“Breakers ahead on the weather bow! Hard up with the helm—hard!”
Chapter Seventeen.
Pat Doolan “Carries On.”
Jorrocks’s cry to put the helm up was instantly obeyed by the man at the wheel, who jammed it hard-a-port with all his strength. The hands belonging to the watch on duty, at the same time, knowing with the aptitude of seamen what this order necessitated, rushed to the lee braces, easing them off without any further word of command, while those on the weather side were hauled in, thus squaring the yards and getting the ship round before the wind, when she ran off to the north-westwards, on a course almost at right angles to her former direction—which was on a bowline, with the sou’-south-east wind nearly on her beam.