the operation did not
occasion much difficulty to us.

Larrikins, who was bowman, pressed out the fore part of the lug as soon
as the yard was half lowered, while two other hands gathered the sheet
of the sail forwards, and passed it round the mast as soon as Draper had
put the helm up; when I and another chap who was aft with me, unhooked
the sheet to port and then rehooked it to the starboard side, which was
to windward now on the cutter's head coming round, as she went off on
the other tack.

Gathering way in a minute or two as we eased off the sheet of the lug,
the cutter went ahead at a great pace, making much better weather of it
running before the wind, as was the case now, than she had lately,
before we came about, when beating up to Bagamoyo; skimming over the
broken surface of the sea, her bows and the deadwood of her keel
forwards being clean out of the water sometimes as she jumped from wave
to wave, and sending the spray she threw up as she came down bash on the
top of some billow, right inboard, wetting us to the skin, and leaving a
wake behind her like a millrace.

We were steering almost due north now; and, looking ahead under the
leech of the lugsail, I could see that the clouds we had observed before
banked up on the horizon had crept up towards the zenith, spreading out
laterally on either side, until half of the heavens was obscured.

Then, all of a sudden, the wind dropped, as if done with a turn of the
hand.

"Look out there for your sheet!" cried old Draper, in a warning tone,
assuming the direction of affairs and taking command of the boat
unconsciously in the emergency, over the head of his officer, Mr
Chisholm. "Let go your sheet, I say!"

Bouncer the seaman, who sat on the after thwart and had charge of this,
bungled about the job, having taken a turn with the end of the rope
round the cleat, instead of holding it in his fist as he should have
done; and the coxswain's harsh repetition of the order in such an
imperative tone seemed to flurry him, making him all the slower.

"Hang it all, man!" shouted Mr Chisholm, taking up the cry, "let go the
sheet at once!"

Seeing what a fog Bouncer was in, besides which the sail was just then
beginning to bulge back as the wind headed us, the boat rocking for an
instant and then canting over as if she was going to capsize, I drew my
knife and rushed to where he sat in the bottom of the boat, struggling
with the sheet!

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.