er it on the next
tack; I therefore gave the word, "Ready about--Helm's a-lee!" and
directed the helmsman to ease down the helm. He let go the wheel for a
moment, and the little hooker at once came to the wind with her
head-sails slatting and threshing as she spilled the wind out of them;
then he began to pull the wheel over toward him, and with one terrific
dive into a sea that came rushing at her, and which she split into two
showers of diamond spray that leapt half as high as her foremast before
it came driving aft in a shower that nearly drenched us to the skin,
round she swept like a gun upon its pivot, and was full again upon the
other tack almost before we could blink our eyelids. The beauty of a
fore-and-after is that she practically works herself, all that is needed
being three or four hands on the forecastle to trim over the jib and
fore sheets as she comes round. It was simply child's play compared
with the complicated manoeuvres that attend the working of a full-rigged
ship, and Henderson laughed aloud in his delight at the simplicity of
it.

"Why, Mr Delamere," he declared, "it's like sailin' the _Europa's_
launch, only easier. The launch never stayed as smartly as that, not so
long as I've knowed her!"

We weathered the Beacon shoal, with room to spare, as I expected we
should; and then kept away, with slightly eased sheets, for the passage
between Gun and Rackum Cays, after negotiating which we shaped a course
for Cow Bay and Yallah Points, off the latter of which we arrived
shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch had struck. Still hugging
the coast as closely as possible, we arrived off Port Morant about four
bells in the afternoon watch, about which time we found the sea-breeze
to be merging gradually into the Trade-wind and heading us so badly that
at length we were obliged to heave about and head off-shore. Here we
soon got into such a boil of a sea that the little hooker threatened to
smother herself, and it became necessary for us to haul down a second
and a third reef, and to take the jib off her, after which she went
along quite comfortably, shipping nothing worse than an occasional
sprinkling of spray over her weather-bow. At eight bells of the second
dog-watch we handsomely weathered Morant Point on our way out through
the Windward Channel, it being my purpose to work out through the Caycos
Passage, and then cruise to and fro athwart and to windward of the
Windward Passages--that