"This 'll never do, Mr. Yardley," said the captain, "Jersey shore or any other. Let all hands keep by to put the ship about."
A voice forward was heard to say something of a roar that sounded like the beat of surf; at which the mate stepped to the side of the ship and listened anxiously.
"It 's true, sir," said he coming aft. "Captain, there 's something very like the beat of surf, here away to the no'th'ard."
A flutter in the canvas caught the captain's attention. "It 's the wind slacking; there's a bare capful," said the mate, "and I 'm afeard there's mischief brewing yonder." He pointed as he spoke a little to the south of east, where the darkness seemed to be giving way to a luminous gray cloud of mist.
"And a half—six!" shouts again the man in the chains.
The captain meets it with a swelling oath, which betrays clearly enough his anxiety. "There 's not a moment to lose, Yardley; see all ready there! Keep her a good full, my boy!" (to the man at the wheel).
The darkness was profound. Reuben, not a little startled by the new aspect of affairs, still kept his place upon the quarter-deck. He saw objects flitting across the waist of the ship, and heard distinctly the coils flung down with a clang upon the wet decks. There was something weird and ghostly in those half-seen figures, in the indistinct maze of cordage and canvas above, and the phosphorescent streaks of spray streaming away from either bow.
"Are you ready there?" says the captain.
"Ay, ay, sir," responds the mate.
"Put your helm a-lee, my man!—Hard down!"