these anchors should be hoisted to the
accompaniment of some rousing chantey. Lady Agatha was especially
insistent on the point.

While they stood about the capstan debating the matter the Reverend
Simeon Calthrop hesitatingly offered a suggestion which showed that,
while he was a novice as far as the nautical life was concerned, he was
also a person of resource.

"How many of those present," inquired the young preacher, "know 'Onward
Christian Soldiers'?"

All were acquainted with the hymn; the pastor grasped a capstan bar and
struck up the song in an agreeable tenor voice; they put their backs
into the work and their hearts into the song, and the anchors of the
Jasper B. came out of mud to the stirring notes of "Onward Christian
Soldiers, marching as to war!"

While they were so engaged the breeze strengthened perceptibly. Looking
towards the west, Cleggett perceived the sun sinking below the horizon.
A long, blue, low-lying bank of clouds seemed to engulf it; for a
moment the top of this cloud was shot through with a golden color; then
a mass of quicker moving, nearer vapors from the north seemed to leap
suddenly nearer still; to extend itself at a bound over almost a third
of the sky; in a breath the day was gone; a storm threatened.

The rising wind made the task of getting the canvas on the poles
extraordinarily difficult. Cleggett was well aware that the usual
method of procedure, in the presence of a storm, is rather to take in
sail than to crack on; but, always the original, he decided in this
case to reverse the common custom. Ashore or at sea, he never
permitted himself to be the slave of conventionalities. The Jasper B.
had lain so long in one spot that it would undoubtedly take more than a
capful of wind to move her. Cleggett did not know when he would get
such a strong wind again, coming from the right direction, and
determined to make the most of this one while he had it. Genius partly
consists in the acuteness which grasps opportunities.

From the struggles of Cap'n Abernethy and the crew with the canvas,
which he saw none too clearly through the increasing dusk from his post
at the wheel, Cleggett judged that the wind was indeed strong enough
for his purpose. Yards, sheets and sails seemed to be acting in the
most singular manner. He could not remember reading of any parallel
case in the treatises on navigation which he had perused. Every now
and then the Cap'n or one of the crew would be