out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the
whole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing,
and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was
lost. "Whale-hole," said Manuel, hauling in. "That is good joke on
Disko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and the
others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to the
edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They
made another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harvey's
head stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. A whiteness moved in
the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave,
and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his first
introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered in
the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though,
clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf
over the hand-lines and spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar;
and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer
the schooner from one berth to another.

It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his band
on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed
back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite of
Disko saying that it would break a snake's back to follow his wake.
But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the wind
with the staysail--an old one, luckily--set, and Harvey jammed her
right into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. The
foresail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and ripped
through the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going over
by the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey
spent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Platt's lee,
learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he
said, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days.

Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined
Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging overhand when
the lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered but effective stroke
in a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stride along the deck.

"'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when Harvey
was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll la