nd loose the royal as well."

"Ay, ay, sir."

After a few moments of quick work, the officers of the various masts
indicated their readiness for the next order by saying, in rapid
succession,--

"All ready the fore, sir."

"All ready the main, sir."

"All ready the mizzen, sir."

"Handsomely now, and all together. I want those Frenchmen there to see
how smartly we can do this," said the captain, in reply, addressing
Seymour in a tone perfectly audible over the ship.

"Let fall! Lay in! Sheet home! Hoist away! Tend the braces there!"
shouted the first lieutenant.

Amid the creaking of blocks, the straining of cordage, and the lusty
heaving of the men, with the shrill pipes of the boatswain and his
mates for an accompaniment, the sheets were hauled home on the yards,
the yards rose on their respective masts, and the light sails, the
braces being hauled taut, bellied out in the strong breeze, adding
materially to the speed of the ship.

"Lay down from aloft," cried the lieutenant, when all was over.

"Ay, that will do," remarked the captain. "We go better already. I am
most anxious to get clear of the Capes before nightfall. Call the men
aft, and request the officers to come up on the quarterdeck. I wish to
speak to them."

"Ay, ay, sir.--Mr. Wilton," said the young officer, turning to a young
midshipman, standing on the lee-side of the deck, "step below and ask
the officers there, and those forward, to come on deck. Bentley," he
called to the boatswain, "call all hands aft."

"Ay, ay, sir."

Again the shrill whistling of the pipes was heard, followed by the deep
tones of Bentley, which rolled and tumbled along the decks of the ship
in the usual long-drawn monotonous cry, which could be heard, above the
roar of the wind or the rush of the water or the straining of the
timbers, from the truck to the keelson: "All hands lay aft, to the
quarter-deck."

The captain, standing upon the poop-deck, was not, at first glance, a
particularly imposing figure. He was small in stature, scarcely five
and a half feet high at best, with his natural height diminished, as is
often the case with sailors, by a slight bending of the back and
stooping of the shoulders; yet he possessed a well-knit, vigorous, and
not ungraceful figure, whose careless poise, and the ease with which he
maintained his position, with his hands clasped behind his back, in
spite of the rather heavy roll and pitch of the ship, in the very