ne!" ordered the commander, and the jiggling,
complaining engines danced ahead, the horrid gray beneath the pilot's
ebony notwithstanding.

"By the deep--four!" warned Joe Byng in a level sing-song. The two gongs
clanged like an echo to him, and the Puncher's speed was reduced at
once to her point, of minimum stability. She rolled and quivered like
a living thing in fear, falling on and off, nosing out a passage on her
own account apparently, and seeming to be gathering all her strength for
one tremendous effort.

"That's bettah, sah! That's bettah, Captain, sah! Go astern! This
he-ah's the bar, sah--damn bad place, the bar, sah! Go astern, sah.
Captain, sah, d'you he-ah me--go astern! Try again, 'nother place
further up, sah. Captain, sah! Over that way; that way thar--that way,
sah!"

He pointed through the sky-flung spray with a trembling finger and his
voice was rich with doleful emphasis, but the commander held his course
and carried on. There seemed neither sympathy nor understanding on
that unsteadiest of ships. Curley Crothers, solemn-faced as Nemesis and
looking half as compassionate, moved his wheel a trifle. Joe Byng in
the chains kept up his even sing-song, expressionless, as if he were an
automatic clock that did not care, but must record the truth each time
his dripping pendulum touched bottom.

"And a half--three!"

White foam was boiling in among the dirty welter, and the Puncher's bow
pitched suddenly as the first big bar wave lifted her; a second later
her propellers chug-chug-chugged in surface spume as she kicked upward
like a porpoise diving.

"Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy!" groaned the pilot. "This he-ah watah's full
of sharks, an' that's the bar! You're on the bar now, Captain, sah!"

"By the mark--three!" Byng chanted steadily.

"Starboard a little more," said the commander leaning forward and
shoving the pilot away to leeward at the same time. Then he shouted to
the fo'castle head, where a bosun's mate and his crew had climbed and
were awaiting orders in evident and most unreasonable unconcern.

"Get both anchors ready!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" came the answer, and efficiency controlled by experts
proceeded at kaleidoscopic angles to defy the elements. The big steel
hooks were ready in an instant.

"Stop her!" ordered the commander.

The gongs clanged out an alarm and the throbbing ceased.

"Hard astern, both engines!"

Again there was a clangor under hatches, and the suffering bearings