on the ship's house, and the hail of wood and iron from aloft threatened
their heads--men were passing the tow-line.

It was a seven-inch steel hawser with a Manila tail, which they had
taken to the foretopsail-sheet bitts before the jib-boom had gone.
Panting from their exertions, they watched it lift from the water as
the steamer ahead paid out with a taut strain; then, though the
crippled spars were in danger of falling and really needed their first
attention, they ignored the fact and hurried aft, as one man, to attend
to Seldom.

Encouraged by the objurgations of Bigpig and his assistant, who were
steering now after the steamer, they called their late commander down
from the house and deposed him in a concert of profane ridicule and
abuse, to which he replied in kind. He was struck in the face by the
small fist of Sinful Peck, and immediately knocked the little man down.
Then he was knocked down himself by a larger fist, and, fighting
bravely and viciously, became the object of fist-blows and kicks,
until, in one of his whirling staggers along the deck, he passed close
to the short, broad, hairy man, who yielded to the excitement of the
moment and added a blow to Seldom's punishment. It was an unfortunate
mistake; for he took Seldom's place, and the rain of fists and boots
descended on him until he fell unconscious. Mr. Helward himself
delivered the last quieting blow, and then stood over him with a lurid
grin on his bleeding face.

"Got to put down mutiny though the heavens fall," he said painfully.

"Right you are, Seldom," answered one. "Here, Jackson, Benson--drag him
forrard; and, Seldom," he added, reprovingly, "don't you ever try it
again. Want to be captain, hey? You can't; you don't know enough. You
couldn't command my wheelbarrow. Here's three days' work to clear up
the muss you've made."

But in this they spoke more, and less, than the truth. The steamer,
going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each
quarter, kept the ship's canvas full until her crew had steadied the
yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer-stays and
shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not.
An uncanny appearance of the sea to leeward indicated too close
proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to windward told
of probable increase of wind and sea. And the steamer waited no longer.
With a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the
sh