"pay" off to starboard,
he steered her right into the wind's eye, with the sails shivering all
the time, until the boat stopped, when he cried out to Main Brace to
"let go the anchor," which Main Brace did promptly, with an "Ay, ay,
sir!" and then he "clewed" up the sails, and spread a white and red
striped and red-fringed awning over the place where they were seated,
and said he was now going on with the story. "Isn't this a tip-top
place," said he, "for story-telling?" And the children all said it was
"tip-top," and "jolly," and "grand," and made many little speeches about
it, which to put down here would make this account so long that
everybody would get tired before getting to the end of it.

"Now I call this a much better place than the 'Crow's Nest,'" went on
the Captain; "for, don't you see, when we knocked off yesterday I was
standing in the middle of the sea, on a great ice-raft. To be sure we
are not exactly in the middle of the sea here, nor on an ice-raft
either, but we are on salt water, and that's where I like to be. The air
is better for the wits, and the tongue too, for that matter, than on the
land there, which is a good enough place to be when there is no wind;
but I like to be on the water, and have plenty of sea-room, when the
wind blows, especially when it blows a gale,--for on land, at such
times, I'm always afraid that the trees will blow over on me, or the
house will blow down on my head, or some dreadful accident will happen,
whereas on the sea one has no fears at all; and besides, at sea one is
always at home,--come rain or shine, he's always his house with him, and
never has to go groping about for shelter."

"Only you mustn't be in the forecastle," put in cunning William, who
remembered the Captain's fright when he first found himself at sea in
the _Blackbird_.

"Never mind that, lad," replied the Captain, "I was only a boy then, and
hadn't come to years of discretion. I've made better friends with the
sea since that day. But let us go on, or we'll never get through with
this story, any more than the Flying Dutchman will get into port, though
he keeps on beating up and down forever; and as for to-day, why, we'll
leave off just where we began, like thieves in a treadmill, if we don't
get started pretty soon.

* * * * *

"Well, you see, as I was saying, you left me standing on an ice-raft in
the middle of the Arctic Sea, cast away in a cold and for