nt a smart hand at the wheel, you say, and another
as a look-out aloft. I intend, therefore, to take the wheel myself; and
Rogers, who has the quickest eye on board the ship, will station himself
on the fore-topsail-yard to watch for the rocks you spoke about. The
rest of the hands will be stationed at the sheets and braces, with
orders to let go and haul the moment you give the word. So, with this
arrangement, if anything goes wrong you will not be able to say that any
of us were to blame."

"All right," cried Ned, "I am quite satisfied with the arrangement; and
I will do my best, as I said, to take the ship safely through. As there
is a good steady breeze blowing I shall work her under topsails,
topgallant-sails, jibs, and spanker, with the courses in the brails
ready for an emergency, but not set; as presently, when we get into the
narrowest part of the passage, our boards will be so short that the men
would not be able to get down the tacks and sheets before it will be
time to heave in stays again. When the cable is shortened in to twenty-
fathoms let the hands go aloft and loose the canvas."

"Right you are," said Williams, turning away and walking forward to
superintend operations on the forecastle.

The men roused the cable in to the inspiriting strains of a lively
"shanty;" and before long Rogers' voice was heard announcing the news
that the twenty-fathom shackle was inside the hawse-pipe.

"Away aloft and loose the canvas" was now the word, upon which the men
deserted the windlass; and whilst some swarmed aloft to cast off the
gaskets from the upper sails others laid out upon the jib-boom to loose
the jibs, the residue scattering about the decks to attend to the calls
of their shipmates aloft to "let go the main-topgallant-clewlines" and
to perform other similar operations of an equally mysterious character--
mysterious, at least, to Sibylla, who, at a hint from Ned, had ventured
out on deck to look abroad upon the unwonted scene, and to watch the
passage of the ship through the reef.

In thus summoning Sibylla from the seclusion of her own cabin Ned
honestly believed that his only motive was to do the poor girl a
service. He said to himself that she would be far better on deck,
breathing the fresh air and stimulated by the healthy excitement of a
little peril, than she would be if she remained below cooped up in a
stuffy state-room, fretting her heart out over matters that neither she
nor he could h