that we could do with her, and with that I had to be content.

Having reported the schooner as ready for sea, and received my orders
from the Admiral, we slipped from Number 9 buoy on a certain morning,
immediately after breakfast, and proceeded to work out to sea, under
single-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore staysail, and Number 2 jib, in
the teeth of a fiery sea-breeze that made the palms at Port Royal Point
assume the aspect of so many umbrellas turned inside-out, and whirled
the sand up from the Palisades in blinding clouds to deposit it again in
the harbour and add to the magnitude of the shoal that is steadily
encroaching upon the deep-water area.

The little hooker became lively and began to pull at her cable, as
though impatient to be off, the moment that the hands tailed on to the
throat and peak-halliards of her immense mainsail, and proceeded to
hoist away; and when, having set the sail--which, by the way, was
beautifully cut, and stood as flat as a board--we slipped, and hauled
aft the jib-sheet, she heeled to the pressure of the wind as though
preparing to spring, and, with a little swirl of water about her sharp
stem as she paid off, proceeded to gather way, and the next moment was
sheering through the smooth water of the harbour like a hungry dolphin
in pursuit of a shoal of flying-fish. With all her sheets flattened-in
she came-to until she was looking up within three points of the wind,
careening to her bearings and sweeping as rapidly and almost as
noiselessly as a wreath of mist driving to leeward, the only sound she
made being a soft hissing at her cutwater as her sharp bow clove the
ripples and ploughed up a glass-like sheet of water on either side of
it. So closely did she hug the wind that we were able to shave close
past the red buoy which marks the edge of Church shoal, handsomely
weathering Number 2 buoy, skimming across the De Horsey Patch, and
shaving past the buoy on the Harbour shoal. By this time we were out
from under the shelter of Port Royal Point, and were beginning to feel
the first of the jump that the sea-breeze was kicking up outside; but it
appeared to make practically no difference in our speed, our abnormally
long, keen, wedge-like bow seemed to cleave the seas without effort or
resistance as they came at us, while the flaring overhang lifted the
little craft buoyantly over them, with nothing worse than a small
playful flash and patter of spray in over the weather cathead to