"O, dear!" groaned Mr. Hamblin, after the vessel had given an unusually heavy lee lurch, the jerk of which had nearly knocked the breath out of his body.
"What's the matter, your honor?" demanded Cleats, who always pitied a landlubber in a gale.
"Do you think there's any danger, Mr. Cleats?" gasped the professor.
"Danger! Bless your honor's heart! there's never any danger in a good ship, well manned," replied the veteran tar, as he knocked a kink out of the sheet. "Look at the captain! When he gets scared, you may."
"It is really terrible!" puffed the learned professor.
"Wouldn't your honor like the boat now?" growled the boatswain, with a hearty chuckle.
"All ready at the sheets, sir!" screamed Robinson, the fourth lieutenant, who had charge of the waist at quarters.
"Hold on, Mr. Terrill!" shouted the captain, as the Josephine rolled on her lee side till the water bubbled up in her scuppers. "Wait till I give you the word!"
Paul was waiting for a favorable moment, when the blast should lull a little, to set the reefed foresail.
"You must get out of the way, gentlemen!" said Terrill, roaring out the words through his trumpet. "The sheet blocks will knock you over!"