"Yes; I have the two trees on with the hummock—we are running straight as an arrow for the channel."
"Steady then," sung out the old master.
"Steady," I returned once more.
On the right hand and on the left the swell was by this time breaking in thunder, flashing up in snowflakes, and sending up a misty drizzle into the cold moonlight sky; but the channel right a-head was still comparatively quiet.
The schooner made an attempt to luff across our bows.
"Aim at him again," sung out old Bloody Politeful. "Aim at him again, Lanyard; to heave-to here is impossible."
"Boarders, stand by," cried Lanyard; but he once more, as we approached him, kept away.
We were now actually on the bar. The noise was astounding—deafening. The sea foamed and raged, and flew up in mist, and boiled in over our decks on either hand, as if we had been borne away in some phantom ship, that floated on white foam instead of water; while, in the very channel we were running through, the heave of the sea from without was met by the rush of the stream downwards, and flashed up in numberless jets of sparkling water, which danced about in the moonlight, and curled, and hissed, and vanished, as if they had been white-shrouded, unreal midnight spectres. We ran on, the strange sail on our lee-beam.
"Now is your chance," shouted old Pumpbolt; "jam him down against the long reef there—up with your helm, Mr Brail."
"Ease off the sheets," chimed in the first lieutenant. "Handsomely, men—handsomely."