me, at midnight, as the great gusts tore
by and as we listened for our lighter spars to smash aloft and crash upon
the deck. "I thought my last whirling sailing was past. And here we
are! Here we are!

"Lord! Lord! I sailed third mate in the little _Vampire_ before you
were born. Fifty-six men before the mast, and the last Jack of 'em an
able seaman. And there were eight boys, an' bosuns that was bosuns, an'
sail-makers an' carpenters an' stewards an' passengers to jam the decks.
An' three driving mates of us, an' Captain Brown, the Little Wonder. He
didn't weigh a hundredweight, an' he drove us--he drove _us_, three
drivin' mates that learned from him what drivin' was.

"It was knock down and drag out from the start. The first hour of
puttin' the men to fair perished our knuckles. I've got the smashed
joints yet to show. Every sea-chest broke open, every sea-bag turned
out, and whiskey bottles, knuckle-dusters, sling-shots, bowie-knives, an'
guns chucked overside by the armful. An' when we chose the watches, each
man of fifty-six of 'em laid his knife on the main-hatch an' the
carpenter broke the point square off.--Yes, an' the little _Vampire_ only
eight hundred tons. The _Elsinore_ could carry her on her deck. But she
was ship, all ship, an' them was men's days."

Margaret, save for inability to sleep, did not mind the driving, although
Mr. Mellaire, on the other hand, admitted apprehension.

"He's got my goat," he confided to me. "It isn't right to drive a cargo-
carrier this way. This isn't a ballasted yacht. It's a coal-hulk. I
know what driving was, but it was in ships made to drive. Our iron-work
aloft won't stand it. Mr. Pathurst, I tell you frankly that it is
criminal, it is sheer murder, to run the _Elsinore_ with that crojack on
her. You can see yourself, sir. It's an after-sail. All its tendency
is to throw her stern off and her bow up to it. And if it ever happens,
sir, if she ever gets away from the wheel for two seconds and broaches to
. . . "

"Then what?" I asked, or, rather, shouted; for all conversation had to be
shouted close to ear in that blast of gale.

He shrugged his shoulders, and all of him was eloquent with the
unuttered, unmistakable word--"finish."

At eight this morning Margaret and I struggled up to the poop. And there
was that indomitable, iron old man. He had never left the deck all
night. His eyes were bright, and he appeared in the pink of well-being