"Well, Jack?"
"I've made up my mind what to do," the captain announced. "It's going to blow fit to take your hair out by the roots: that much is sure."
Jerry nodded soberly, and looked his friend straight in the eye.
"We'll have to lay-to before we see the end of this, and I'd rather do so at sea-anchor 'n any other way. What do you think?"
"That's right enough. I suppose we'd better make ready now?"
"We sha'n't have much time when it does come. We must get a mess of things together up for'ard fit to hold a liner. We'll need it."
Jack got the hands together around the winch forward, and set them at once, under his direction, to the making of the "sea-anchor." The spinnaker-boom and the two shorter boat-booms were first lashed firmly together with inch rope in a rough isosceles triangle.
"Now," Jack ordered, "fetch the old staysail, and bend it on in the frame."
"How are you going to ballast the thing?" asked Tab. "It'll float flat if you don't give it a sinker."
"I fancy the market-boat's killock would be about the right thing if we could get at it," Jack answered. "Do you know where"—