from the chains came chanting full and loud, "By
the mark--nine!"

"This 'll never do, Mr. Yardley," said the captain, "Jersey shore or any
other. Let all hands keep by to put the ship about."

A voice forward was heard to say something of a roar that sounded like
the beat of surf; at which the mate stepped to the side of the ship and
listened anxiously.

"It 's true, sir," said he coming aft. "Captain, there 's something very
like the beat of surf, here away to the no'th'ard."

A flutter in the canvas caught the captain's attention. "It 's the wind
slacking; there's a bare capful," said the mate, "and I 'm afeard
there's mischief brewing yonder." He pointed as he spoke a little to the
south of east, where the darkness seemed to be giving way to a luminous
gray cloud of mist.

"And a half--six!" shouts again the man in the chains.

The captain meets it with a swelling oath, which betrays clearly enough
his anxiety. "There 's not a moment to lose, Yardley; see all ready
there! Keep her a good full, my boy!" (to the man at the wheel).

The darkness was profound. Reuben, not a little startled by the new
aspect of affairs, still kept his place upon the quarter-deck. He saw
objects flitting across the waist of the ship, and heard distinctly the
coils flung down with a clang upon the wet decks. There was something
weird and ghostly in those half-seen figures, in the indistinct maze of
cordage and canvas above, and the phosphorescent streaks of spray
streaming away from either bow.

"Are you ready there?" says the captain.

"Ay, ay, sir," responds the mate.

"Put your helm a-lee, my man!--Hard down!"

"Hard down it is, sir!"

The ship veers up into the wind; and, as the captain shouts his order,
"Mainsail haul!" the canvas shakes; the long, cumbrous yard groans upon
its bearings; there is a great whizzing of the cordage through the
blocks; but, in the midst of it all,--coming keenly to the captain's
ear,--a voice from the fore-hatch exclaims, "By G--, she touches!"

The next moment proved it true. The good ship minded her helm no more.
The fore-yards are brought round by the run and the mizzen, but the
light wind--growing lighter--hardly clears the flapping canvas from the
spars.

In the sunshine, with so moderate a sea, 't would seem little; in so
little depth of water they might warp her off; but the darkness
magnifies the danger; besides which, an ominous sighing and murmur are
coming from that luminous mi