of all Jonahs," groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters,
Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?"

"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up.

She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, and
unkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style quarterdeck was
some or five feet high, and her rigging flew knotted and tangled like
weed at a wharf-end. She was running before the wind--yawing
frightfully--her staysail let down to act as a sort of extra
foresail,--"scandalized," they call it,--and her foreboom guyed out
over the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's;
her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and nailed and clamped beyond
further repair; and as she hove herself forward, and sat down on her
broad tail, she looked for all the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old
woman sneering at a decent girl.

"That's Abishai," said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' the
judgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt He's
run in to bait, Miquelon way."

"He'll run her under," said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this weather."

"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago," Disko replied. "Looks 's if he
cal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n natural,
Tom Platt?"

"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe," said the sailor
slowly. "Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mighty
quick."

The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and lay
head to wind within ear-shot.

A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled
something Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face darkened. "He'd
resk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says we're in fer a shift o'
wind. He's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai!" He waved his arm up and
down with the gesture of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward. The
crew mocked him and laughed.

"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishai. "A livin'
gale--a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all you
Gloucester haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!"

"Crazy full--as usual," said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us,
though."

She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something about a
dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. Harvey
shuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew.

"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught," sa