“Certainly—heave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle.”
At this moment the man aloft again sung out—“There is a wreck on the weather most point of the long reef, sir.”
“Ay! what does she look like?”
“I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is gone, sir—I think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir.”
The Captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood on the long eighteen at the weather-gangway.
“Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle?”
I glanced my eye over the side—“Why, no, sir—a boat will live well enough—there is not so much sea in shore here.”
“Very well—haul the courses up, and heave-to.”
It was done.
“Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain’s mate.”