was
surprisingly stiff considering how light she was. Wilkinson and the
negro came and stood by my side. The sea broke heavily from the weather
bow, and the water roared white under the lee bends and spread astern in
a broad wake of foam. The whaler did not brace his yards up till after
we had started, and now hung a pale faint mass in the windy darkness on
the quarter. A tincture of rusty red hovered like smoke coloured by the
furnace that produces it, in the west, but the night had drawn down
quick and dark; the washing noise of the water was sharp, the wind
piercingly cold; each sweep of the schooner's masts to windward was
followed by a dull roaring of the blast rushing out of the hollows of
the canvas, and she swung to the seas with wild yaws, but with
regularity sufficient to prove the strict government of the helm.

But it was being at sea! homeward bound too! There was no wish of mine,
engendered by my hideous loneliness on the ice, by my abhorred
association with the Frenchman, that I could not refer to as, down to
this moment, gratified. My heart bounded; my spirits could not have been
higher had this ocean been the Thames, and yonder dark flowing hills of
water the banks of Erith and the Gravesend shore.

I turned to the three men: "My lads," said I, "you prove yourselves fine
bold fellows by thus volunteering. Do not fear: if God guides us
home--to my home, I mean--you shall find a handsome account in this
business."

"Six more chaps would have jined had th'ole man bin willin'," said
Wilkinson. "But best as it is, master, though she's a trifle
short-handed."

"Why, yes," said I; "but being fore and aft, you know! It isn't as if
we'd got courses to hand and topsails to reef."

"Ay, ay, dat's de troof," cried Billy Pitt. "I tort o' dat. Fore an' aft
makes de difference. Don't guess I should hab volunteer had she been a
brig."

"There are four of us," said I. "You're my chief mate, Wilkinson. Choose
your watch."

"I choose Cromwell," said he; "he was in my watch aboard the whaler."

"Very well," I exclaimed; and this being settled, and both negroes
declaring themselves good cooks, we arranged that they should
alternately have the dressing of our victuals, that Wilkinson should
have the cabin next mine, and the negroes the one in which the Frenchman
had slept, one taking the other's place as he was relieved.

I asked Wilkinson what he thought of the schooner. He answered that he
was watching her.