g down before it, true clipper style. By
nightfall it was blowing hard, and the kites were doused.

The night came down black as coal tar, with an overcast sky, and
lightning playing through the cloud in frequent, blinding flashes. My
watch had the deck from eight to twelve, and Mister Lynch (and his
satellites, Chips and Sails) kept us hustling fore and aft, sweating
sheets, and taking a heave at this and that.

Few watches in my life stand out so sharply in my memory. And it was
not the near tragedy that concluded it that so impressed my mind; it
was the sailing. For Lynch was cracking on, and there was no
faint-hearted skipper interfering with his game. Indeed, had Swope
been on deck before the hour when he did come up, I do not think he
would have protested. This reckless sailing was what made half the
fame of the _Golden Bough_. It was said that Yankee Swope sailed
around Cape Stiff with padlocks on his topsail sheets! And this night
we showed the gale the full spread of her three t'gan's'ls, and the
ship raced before the wind like a frightened stag.

Oh, I had seen sailing before. I had been in smart ships, had run my
Easting down in southern waters more than once, had made the eastern
passage of the Western Ocean with the winter storm on my back the whole
distance. But this night was my introduction to the clipper style,
where the officers banked fifty per cent on their seamanship, to avert
disaster, and fifty per cent on blind chance that the top hamper would
stand the strain. An incautious system? Aye, but cautious men did not
sail those ships.

It was so dark we had to feel our way about the decks. I could not see
the upper canvas, but I could imagine it standing out like curved sheet
iron. Every moment I expected to hear the explosion of rent canvas, or
the rattle of falling gear on the deck. Not I alone thought so, for
once when Chips and Sails went to windward of me, I heard Sails bawl to
his companion,

"He'll have the spars about our ears before the hour is out!"

"Not he," responded Chips. "Trust Lynch and his luck!"

True enough. The hour passed, and another, and Lynch still carried on
without mishap. Indeed, the wind had moderated a bit.

Throughout the watch I kept close by Newman's side. That warning, to
look behind me in the dark, had by no means escaped my mind. When we
came on deck, Newman said to me, "A good night for a bad job, Jack!
Keep your eyes open!" Small advi