eplied to the captain's hail.

"Bring a maul and some more wedges!" commanded the master.

"_Drusilla_ is getting her back up some more," commented the second
mate, starting for the storeroom. "I don't blame her much. This is no
place for an old lady, out here to-night." He ordered Mayo to accompany
him.

In a few moments they reported to the captain, the mate carrying the
two-headed maul and the young man bearing an armful of wedges.

Captain Downs bestowed on Mayo about the same attention he would have
allowed to a galley cockroach. He pointed to a gap in the rail.

"There--drive one in there," he told the mate. "Let that nigger hold the
wedge." There was rancor in his voice--baleful hostility shone in his
snapping eyes; no captain tolerates disobedience at sea, and Mayo had
disregarded all discipline in the cabin.

The young man kneeled and performed the service and followed the party
dutifully when they moved on to the next gap.

The pitching schooner groaned and grunted and squalled in all her
fabric.

Every angle joint was working--yawing open and closing with dull
grindings as the vessel rolled and plunged.

"By goofer, she's gritting her teeth in good shape!" commented the first
mate.

"She ought to have been stiffened a year ago, when she first began to
loosen and work!" declared Captain Downs. His anxiety stirred both his
temper and his tongue. "I was willing to have my sixteenth into her
assessed for repairs, but a stockholder don't have to go to sea! I wish
I had an excursion party of owners aboard here now."

"When these old critters once get loose enough to play they rattle to
pieces mighty fast," said the mate. "But this is nothing specially bad."

"Find out what we've got under us," snapped Captain Downs. The wedges
had been driven. "Let this nigger carry the lead for'ard!"

It was a difficult task in the night, because the leadline had to be
passed from the quarter-deck to the cathead outside the shrouds; the
rails and deck were slippery. Plainly, Captain Downs was proposing to
show Mayo "a thing or two."

He let go the lead at command, and heard the man on the quarter-deck,
catching the line when it swung into a perpendicular position, report
twenty-five fathoms.

Again, answering the mate's bawled orders, Mayo carried the lead forward
and dropped it, after a period of waiting, during which the schooner
had been eased off. He was soaked to the skin, and was miserable in both
body and