"But I shipped as a sailor——"
"Git thar quick an' sudden," roared the black giant, rising from the cuddy hatch coaming. He had heard the loud tone of the man forward telling his latest yarn.
A look of amazement and concern came over the face of the man from "Berhammer," but he hesitated no longer. Seizing the lead which lay always ready in a tub of line near the windlass, he made the lee side and hove it far ahead.
The Sea-Horse was passing over the Great Bahama Bank near its extreme northern end, and at a part where even the mate had never been. She had stopped off the island a few hours before to take on the stranger for pilot and continue her way to a wreck reported on the eastern edge of the shoal water.
"Plenty o' water here," he yelled, as the lead-line came perpendicular.
"How much?" asked Sanders.
The man hove again.
"Not much water here," he cried, as the line suddenly stopped running out.
The mate started forward, looking over the side.
"Not much water here," called the man again.