e to pack their bags.

"Swing out that starboard boat, Mr. Jackson," the captain commanded,
staring after the foaming course of the cow as she surged away for a
fresh onslaught. "But don't lower it. Hold it overside in the falls, or
that damned fish'll smash it. Just swing it out, ready and waiting, let
the men get their bags, then stow food and water aboard of her."

Lashings were cast off the boat and the falls attached, when the men fled
to holding-vantage just ere the whale arrived. She struck the _Mary
Turner_ squarely amidships on the port beam, so that, from the poop, one
saw, as well as heard, her long side bend and spring back like a limber
fabric. The starboard rail buried under the sea as the schooner heeled
to the blow, and, as she righted with a violent lurch, the water swashed
across the deck to the knees of the sailors about the boat and spouted
out of the port scuppers.

"Heave away!" Captain Doane ordered from the poop. "Up with her! Swing
her out! Hold your turns! Make fast!"

The boat was outboard, its gunwale resting against the _Mary Turner's_
rail.

"Ten inches, sir, and making fast," was the mate's information, as he
gauged the sounding-rod.

"I'm going after my tools," Captain Doane announced, as he started for
the cabin. Half into the scuttle, he paused to add with a sneer for
Nishikanta's benefit, "And for my one chronometer."

"A foot and a half, and making," the mate shouted aft to him.

"We'd better do some packing ourselves," Grimshaw, following on the
captain, said to Nishikanta.

"Steward," Nishikanta said, "go below and pack my bedding. I'll take
care of the rest."

"Mr. Nishikanta, you can go to hell, sir, and all the rest as well," was
Daughtry's quiet response, although in the same breath he was saying,
respectfully and assuringly, to the Ancient Mariner: "You hold Killeny,
sir. I'll take care of your dunnage. Is there anything special you want
to save, sir?"

Jackson joined the four men below, and as the five of them, in haste and
trepidation, packed articles of worth and comfort, the _Mary Turner_ was
struck again. Caught below without warning, all were flung fiercely to
port and from Simon Nishikanta's room came wailing curses of announcement
of the hurt to his ribs against his bunk-rail. But this was drowned by a
prodigious smashing and crashing on deck.

"Kindling wood--there won't be anything else left of her," Captain Doane
commented in the ensuing