“Tacks and sheets!” the next order followed; when the head sails were flattened and the ship brought up to the wind.
Then came,—
“Mainsail haul!” and the ponderous yards were swung round as the Denver City payed off handsomely, close-reefed as she was, on the starboard tack, shaping a course at a good right angle to her former one, so as now to weather the Smalls light, off the Pembroke shore, at the entrance to the Bristol Channel—a course that required a stiff lee helm, and plenty of it, as the wind had now fetched round almost due south, well before the beam.
“Thet will do, the watch!” then called out Captain Snaggs once more; but the men were not to be taken in a second time, and waited, grouped about the hatchway, to see whether he would call them back again.
He did not, however.
So, their stopping there made him angry.
“Thet’ll do, the watch! D’ye haar?” he shouted a second time. “If ye want to go below fur y’r grub, ye’d better go now, fur, I guess I won’t give ye another chance, an’ yer spell in the fo’c’s’le ’ll soon be up. Be off with ye sharp, ye durned skallawags, or I’ll send ye up agen to reef tops’ls!”
This started them, and they disappeared down the hatchway in ‘a brace of shakes,’ the skipper turning round to the first-mate then, as if waiting for him to suggest some further little amusement for the afternoon.
Mr Jefferson Flinders was quite equal to the occasion.
“Didn’t you call all hands, cap, jist now?” asked he, with suspicious innocence; “I thought I kinder heerd you.”