ore again let go, and the same performance gone
through as before, with the addition of the men having to go up on the
fore yard after they had finished with the topsails, and take a reef as
well in the foresail--another piece of touch work.

As the ship was then found not to steer so well close-hauled, without
any headsail, on account of the jib being lowered down, the foretopmost
staysail was hoisted in its place and the bunt of the spanker loosened,
to show a sort of `goose-wing' aft,--this little additional fore and aft
sail now giving her just the steadying power she wanted for her helm,
and enabling her to lie a bit closer to the wind.

"Thet will do, the port watch!" cried Captain Snaggs at length, and the
men were scampering back to the fo'c's'le in high glee, glad of being
released at last, when, as if he'd only been playing with them--as a cat
plays with a mouse--he arrested their rush below with another shout,--

"Belay thaar! All hands 'bout ship!"

"Ha! ha!" sniggered Jefferson Flinders, the first-mate, behind him,
enjoying the joke amazingly; "guess ye had 'em thaar, cap. Them coons
'll catch a weasel asleep, I reckon, when they try working a traverse on
a man of the grit of yourn!"

"Bully for ye," echoed the captain, grinning and showing his yellow
teeth, while his pointed beard wagged out. "Say, Flinders, I'll fix
'em!"

The men, though, did not relish the joke; nor did they think it such an
amusing one! It might, certainly, have been necessary to put the ship
about, for the leeway she was making, coupled with the set of the cross
tides, was causing her to hug the Irish coast too much, so that she was
now bearing right on to the Saltee rocks, the vessel having covered the
intervening twenty odd miles of water that lay between the Tuskar and
this point since the hands had been first called up; but Captain Snaggs
could have done this just as well off-hand after the topsails were
reefed, without waiting until the men were ready to go below again
before giving the fresh order.

It was only part and parcel of his tyrannical nature, that never seemed
satisfied unless when giving pain and annoyance to those forced to serve
under him.

And so, the men grumbled audibly as they came back once more from the
fore hatch, manning the sheets and braces, when the skipper's warning
shout was heard,--

"Helm's a-lee!"

"Tacks and sheets!" the next order followed; when the head sails were
flattened and th