language...--"Throwing
things--good God!" grunted Mr. Baker in dismay.--"That was meant for me,"
said the master, quietly; "I felt the wind of that thing; what was it--an
iron belaying-pin?"--"By Jove!" muttered Mr. Creighton. The confused
voices of men talking amidships mingled with the wash of the sea,
ascended between the silent and distended sails-seemed to flow away
into the night, further than the horizon, higher than the sky. The stars
burned steadily over the inclined mastheads. Trails of light lay on
the water, broke before the advancing hull, and, after she had passed,
trembled for a long time as if in awe of the murmuring sea.

Meantime the helmsman, anxious to know what the row was about, had let
go the wheel, and, bent double, ran with long, stealthy footsteps to the
break of the poop. The Narcissus, left to herself, came up gently in to
the wind without any one being aware of it. She gave a slight roll, and
the sleeping sails woke suddenly, coming all together with a mighty
flap against the masts, then filled again one after another in a quick
succession of loud reports that ran down the lofty spars, till the
collapsed mainsail flew out last with a violent jerk. The ship trembled
from trucks to keel; the sails kept on rattling like a discharge of
musketry; the chain sheets and loose shackles jingled aloft in a thin
peal; the gin blocks groaned. It was as if an invisible hand had given
the ship an angry shake to recall the men that peopled her decks to
the sense of reality, vigilance, and duty.--"Helm up!" cried the master,
sharply. "Run aft, Mr. Creighton, and see what that fool there is up
to."--"Flatten in the head sheets. Stand by the weather fore-braces,"
growled Mr. Baker. Startled men ran swiftly repeating the orders. The
watch below, abandoned all at once by the watch on deck, drifted towards
the forecastle in twos and threes, arguing noisily as they went--"We
shall see to-morrow!" cried a loud voice, as if to cover with a menacing
hint an inglorious retreat. And then only orders were heard, the falling
of heavy coils of rope, the rattling of blocks. Singleton's white head
flitted here and there in the night, high above the deck, like the
ghost of a bird.--"Going off, sir!" shouted Mr. Creighton from aft.--"Full
again."--"All right... "--"Ease off the head sheets. That will do the
braces. Coil the ropes up," grunted Mr. Baker, bustling about.

Gradually the tramping noises, the confused sound of voi