next twenty minutes. It took all four of us to stow the jib, leaving
Michael at the wheel the while. And a tremendous job it was, though (I say
it in humility) four better men never lay out on a spar, than those who
set about the task on this occasion. We got it in, however, but, I need
scarcely tell the seaman, it was not "stowed in the skin." Marble insisted
on leading the party, and never before had I seen the old fellow work as
he did on that day. He had a faculty of incorporating his body and limbs
with the wood and ropes, standing, as it might be, on air, working and
dragging with his arms and broad shoulders, in a way that appeared to give
him just as much command of his entire strength, as another man would
possess on the ground.

At length we reduced the canvass to the fore-top-mast stay-sail, and
main-top-sail, the latter double-reefed. It was getting to be time that
the last should be close reefed, (and we carried four reefs in the Dawn),
but we hoped the cloth would hold out until we wanted to roll it up
altogether. The puffs, however, began to come gale-fashion, and I foresaw
we should get it presently in a style that would require good looking to.

The ship soon drove within the extremity of the head-land, the lead giving
us forty fathoms of water. I had previously asked Michael what water we
might expect, but this he frankly owned he could not tell. He was certain
that ships sometimes anchored there, but what water they found was more
than he knew. He was no conjuror, and guessing might be dangerous, so he
chose to say nothing about it. It was nervous work for a ship-master to
carry his vessel on a coast, under such pilotage as this. I certainly
would have wore round as it was, were it not for the fact that there was a
clear sea to leeward, and that it would always be as easy to run out into
the open water, as the wind was at that moment.

Marble and I now began to question our fisherman as to the precise point
where he intended to fetch up. Michael was bothered, and it was plain
enough his knowledge was of the most general character. As for the
particulars of his calling, he treated them with the coolest indifference.
He had been much at sea in his younger days, it is true; but it was in
ships of war, where the ropes were put into his hands by captains of the
mast, and where his superiors did all the thinking. He could tell whether
ships did or did not anchor near a particular spot, but he knew no reaso