With another fiendish laugh Job sprang into the rigging, and was soon out upon the topsail-yard busy with the reef points.
“Why, he’s shakin’ out the reef,” cried Jim in alarm. “I’ve half a mind to haul on the starboard brace, and try to shake the monster into the sea!”
Job soon shook out the reef, and, descending swiftly by one of the backstays, seized the topsail-halyards.
“Come, lay hold,” he cried savagely.
But no one would obey, so, uttering a curse upon his comrades, he passed the rope round a stanchion, and with his right hand partially hoisted the sail, while with his left he hauled in the slack of the rope.
The vessel, already staggering under much too great a press of canvas, now rushed through the water with terrific speed; burying her bows in foam at one moment, and hurling off clouds of spray at the next as she held on her wild course. Job stood on the bowsprit, drenched with spray, holding with one hand to the forestay, and waving the other high above his head, cheering and yelling furiously as if he were daring the angry sea to come on, and do its worst.
Jim, now unable to speak or act from terror, clung to the starboard bulwarks, while Bunks stood manfully at the helm. Tommy held on to the mainmast shrouds, and gazed earnestly and anxiously out ahead.
Thus they flew, they knew not whither, for several hours that night.
Towards morning, a little before daybreak, the gale began to moderate. Job’s mood had changed. His wild yelling fit had passed away, and he now ranged about the decks in moody silence, like a chained tiger; going down every now and then to drink, but never resting for a moment, and always showing by his looks that he had his eye on Tommy Bogey.
The poor boy knew this well, and watched him intently the whole of that terrible night.